


Systematic

by JeanRainier



Category: Original Work
Genre: Captive, Compulsion, M/M, Metahumans, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Stockholm Syndrome, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:42:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20600213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanRainier/pseuds/JeanRainier
Summary: The story of a man with the power to compel others to obey any order, and the guard of a woman he's taken hostage. An unexpected fixation forms, not on the woman he took initially but her "guard dog" and best friend also scooped up in the endeavor. A twisted, devolving tale of psychological torture and the steady erosion of the guard's personality and sense of self. The overbearing "love" of an ego-maniacal sociopath, and the tortured compassion of a natural empath.





	1. I Will Tear You Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Initially written as a sidelong/background piece to an active group story - now presented on its own. Minor points of context may be missing, but it doesn't impact the point of the story, focused on the dynamic of the two characters. A slow psychoanalysis of both the abuser and his captive.

**"I'll come get you back out. I promise, love."** He dipped down, kissed the blonde's forehead. 

**"Just don't tell Ash, alright? Or you'll get us both in trouble."**

* * *

Nothing.

No perception. No lack of anything, because a lack of something was still perceiving anything at all. It simply was, and was not. A lack of existence. An internalized consciousness with no end, no beginning. No time. No birth, and no death, because those were all things.

Here, there was nothing.

And then it came like a great and terrible split in the sky, a crashing wave, thundering echoes. Light too bright to be anything but blinding and painful. A rush of sounds too loud and many to be anything but drowning. There was still no perception, not really, just an overabundance of everything so great he could do nothing in the face of it.

He retched- but there was nothing to throw up.

Slammed eyes shut but there was still the red veiny flesh of eyelids.

A rush of sounds- heartbeats, his own hammering, fabric on skin on hair on carpet, things moving, breaths in and out, booming and quaking in his ears.

**"I'm here for you."** A voice, another booming noise among it all.

The voice of God, deafening and deep, overpowering all else.

**"I've got you. It's alright."**

The comforting went on long after he stopped shaking, crying, trying to puke and getting nowhere. They had to take it slow- put the blindfold back on, leave just his ears, no sense of smell allowed. With just that, he calmed after a few terrible, painful minutes.

**"Do you know how long you've been in there?"**

A shake of the head, a pained whimper.

**"She left you there for a month. I begged her every day to let you out."**

_She wouldn't.._ The words wouldn't come out but they scrambled in his head.

_She wouldn't do that, she'd never do that._

**"I'm all you've got. You're going to believe me."**

The words had a weight to them. A crushing, spiraling heft. Like iron blocks in sand, sinking down, impressing its shape into everything beneath, no way to resist.

**"I'm all you've got and all you'll ever have. And I love you."**

Things tilted, moving again. A sickening wave of fear.

Hands scrambled blindly, trying to navigate by sound alone to understand when he was grabbing, holding on. Clinging like a child and sobbing with a desperation he hadn't felt since the day Ana killed herself.

**"Please-"** he choked, his own voice hurt his ears.

**"Please don't, I- I don't- please-"**

The sound of lips, a kiss, somewhere- his forehead? Hard to tell.

**"I'm sorry. I have to. She told me I have to."** The voice said low, mourning.

**"No! No no no, please!" **He begged, frantic.

**"Let go of me." **Another order, pressing down hard.

His hands released, fell limp.

**"I'll come get you again as soon as I can. I'll always come get you. I'm all you've got. I love you."**

The words repeated on loop even as he sobbed, even as the laces pulled taut and all perception faded away again. Back to nothing, for what felt like forever, until time lost all meaning again.

* * *

**“Another month. Another taste of freedom.”**

The bindings came off slowly, with his eyes still covered so the sound wouldn’t be too much to bear on top of the sight. Every clicking belt and slide of leather felt like thunder and ocean waves. It all fell away. Packed back into the box.

He sat up, propped against the bed. The blindfold stayed on.

**“Tell me honestly. Do you believe me when I tell you that she’s done this to you?”**

**“No.” **Came readily. Tone dead, but intent there. He was weak. Tired. If he’d slept or not, even he didn’t know. The lines between reality and not, the world and the inside of his head, were wearing down.

Nialls scoffed a laugh, amused and arrogant. Not surprised.

**“I figured as much. You know, I’ve toyed with a lot of people..”**

Movement. Footsteps- hard soled -on carpet. A drag of something. Creaking wood. Chair?

**“It’s very easy to make someone do what I want. Say what I want. Enough so that just compelling you to do it.. It’s.. boring. Very boring. Too easy, you know?” **Fabric shifted. Wood creaked. He sat down, in front of the blonde blind and numb in the floor.

**“The same as how leaving you in that garish little box is boring. It could break you, I’m sure. Ruin you forever, until you’re no more than a drooling mess in a mental home. I could leave you there. Take her to see you sometimes, let her look at the empty face of a man she truly loves. Let her see what I made of you just because you were near her.”** A pause, thoughtful almost. **“But there are more practical things. More fun things. And if you won’t tolerate the easy decline, then I’ll have to be more.. Hands on, in my approach.”**

Things went quiet.

He heard breathing, slow and smooth. The longer the quiet drug on, the more he heard.

A breeze outside. Cracks of the house settling. His own legs shifting against carpet, bare skinned. The creak of leather still on him, protesting some movement he couldn’t feel himself making. Sound was.. Behind him. Lower. Wrists, then? He tested, shifted. A chain clicked against a metal foot of the bed. Arms chained back around it. Nialls hummed at his small movements.

**“Quite the strange creature, you are. Just watching you is interesting sometimes. How you crawl around this world, trying to understand it. Watching and listening and smelling everything. Reminds me a bit of some odd little forest animal, scurrying around and digging in the dirt.”**

Another dip of quiet. Cain didn’t move anymore.

**“You know,”** Nialls started again, after a time. **“I’ve grown to rather like you. Not really you as a person, I couldn’t give a shit about that. But you as an object. You’re surprisingly useful. A good weapon, a good cook. You’ve noble blood ties that could be useful. But more than that, you’re just a dog. You’re her dog. Which means you had to become my dog, naturally. And because she’s the one I must be delicate with, it means you’re the one I never planned to be gentle to. Imagine my surprise, when it turned out you’re nearly indestructible!” **

Nialls laughed.

Cain remembered.

The first nights. The long nights. Hours, shooting and carving and showing him. Showing Nialls what it looked like when he carved his own skin open, off. How blood solidified, how his body turned to skinless crystal before it all slowly grew back. Hours of nothing but blue stones dripping across the floor, strange wounds weeping like a cave’s roof.

**“Initially I just thought it meant I could hurt you as much as I pleased. Use your body as roughly as I wanted. Which, I could. Still can. But then I realized, there’s so much more to you. So much I can say to you, or do to you. You know-”** he broke pace in his words, laughed a touch, sped up into an inconsequential story. **“-I used to make a game of it, at work. Telling people things then telling them to forget it. I’d have such fun, watching their faces curl in horror them smile again. Stupid fucking creatures, the lot of them. All plastic and false and empty. You’re all so easy to change, so easy to sway. I’ve spent a great deal of time wondering if I’m really God, like this. I can control anything, if I bother to. I could cripple the whole country. I could make the president kill himself just with a few words. I could start a world war that would change the face of the planet for decades, centuries!”**

Grandiose words crested then cooled. He took time, to settle back down.

**“Where do you really go after that, though? What do you do, when you can do anything? It’s so frustrating. Nothing really matters, not when it’s all a word away. Nice cars, nice food, nice houses.. I say a word, there it is. All mine. Quite lacks a point then, don’t you think?”**

He paused like he expected an answer.

Cain kept his mouth shut.

**“My point being,” **Nialls sighed. **“I could tell you to forget ever knowing her. I could tell you to forget your family, your friends. Anything you’ve ever loved or hated. I can push and pull your brain like dough, into anything I want. And I will. Trust and believe, I will. But not that way. Not instantly, not simply. Because you see, I like talking to you, _Cain Croix_. I like the fact I can tell you anything and I don’t have to erase it. I can talk to you for hours, about anything I want. I can tell you how I want to strangle that pretty little cunt you love so much and watch her foam and cry while I fuck her bloody. And you can’t do a goddamn thing. Can’t see for your pretty little crystals, can’t hurt me when you’re chained down. Can’t do anything I tell you not to do. You’re perfect. Strange and inhuman and oh, so fun to control. You’re better than any common stray mutt. You’re my dog. A purebred. A wonderful, ideal little thing all for me. And I’m going to use you,”**

Wood creaked. Nialls stood up.

**“I am going to use up every drop of you until there’s nothing left. And then, when you’re empty and hollow and gone, I’ll put more in you. I’ll make you believe anything I want, fill you with memories and ideas and build you back up. Just to tear you down again. You made sure I can’t use you as Cullan anymore, but that’s fine.”**

He took to pacing, back and forth, in front.

**“I’m going to make you tell me every little detail about yourself. Every memory you can recall, everything you’ve ever done or said or thought. I’ll collect you Cain, like no more than data. And when I have all I want, I’ll tear you apart. Piece. By. Piece. Until you’re nothing.”**

The pacing stopped. Nialls made a pleased humming noise.

**“And then I’ll pour all of who and what you were back into you. I’ll remind you of every emotion you ever felt. Every heartbreak, every fear, every love. I’ll tell you all about how you fell in love with a girl and her grandfather and they became the kind family you’d never had. I’ll put back into you every warm night spent holding her, and every fucking nightmare you had on that godforsaken boat.”**

He stepped closer, one foot at a time.

Cain pressed back into the bed. Still mute. Blind. Not cowering, not meek.

Closer to disgusted, wary, on edge. Nialls stopped between his curled up legs.

**“And then I’ll tear it all back out of you again.”**

Hands moved. Sounds of buckles and laces clinking and sliding.

He fitted the hood back over, until there was no more sound, no smell.

With senses gone, the nothing returned. Cain couldn’t tell if he fought it or not, in the end.


	2. It's My Fault

He came back, after an unknown period of time. Said it had been a few days.

Cain wasn’t sure if he believed him, but it didn’t matter.

What mattered was the bottle of water pressed to his lips- not something he felt or could see, still blindfolded. But he heard the plastic pop between fingers, heard the liquid shifting, knew it was close to his face. Nialls pressed and told him to open, and he did. He told him to drink, and he tried to, slowly.

After some time, the water was gone. The sound of it pulled away, recapped.

Then it all started again.

**“Tell me,”** it began, bottle set aside on what sounded like the bedside table.

**“Honestly. What do you think of yourself?”**

Lips pursed, but he couldn’t resist forever. He knew that, but it was the small fight that mattered. The spark of resistance still there. He had to hold on to that for the sake of its own existence. The day he lost that one tiny detail was the day it started to unravel. He knew it, because he’d seen it. He’d seen people lose the small details. Small slips of footing in a great and lengthy war where the end was always a new body in a new grave and new parents crying new tears for a new suicide.

He had no plans of being a new heartache for the people he loved.

So he resisted. Then he obeyed.

“I hate myself.” A simple answer.

Nialls sat, the chair creaked.

**“Why do you hate yourself? Answer everything I ever ask you honestly.”**

A new pause, shorter, still resisting. Compulsion was not a request, however.

“Because everything I do is wrong. I’m an idiot. I’m a fuck up. I hurt people.”

A pause as the words stopped. Nialls kept pressing.

**“Where were you born?”**

“Lyon. France.”

**“Who are your parents?”**

“Severin Croix and Liliane Croix.”

**“Do you have any siblings?”**

“Yes.”

A brief pause. He knew what Nialls wanted. How many, genders, names, ages.

But he’d asked a simple question, a simple compulsion. And Cain had figured out a while ago how to cheat the impulses. How to fulfill without divulging. How to play the long game against Nialls, even bound and blind in the floor of an isolated room.

Nialls didn’t like the sass. He took a moment to keep his temper in check.

Cain smirked, knowing Nialls would hate that even more.

He didn’t speak again until he was able to make himself sound calm, unbothered.

**“How many siblings do you have?”**

“One.”

A pointed pause. The answer didn’t match what Nialls knew to be true.

It took him a moment to realize Cain was manipulating a loophole in his wording.

He could hear it, when Nialls grit his teeth. Inhaled tight, slow. Held it. Exhaled a little too rough.

**“How many siblings _did _you have?”**

Another resistant pause.

“Two.”

**“What were their names?”**

“..Alphonse and Anastasia.”

**“Were they older or younger than you?”**

“Younger.”

**“By how much?”**

“A few minutes.”

**“Triplets?”**

“Yes.”

A new pause. Nialls got up. Picked the water back up.

Another round of being made to drink, then retreating back to his chair.

**“Which is the one that died?”**

“...Anastasia.”

Saying her name still hurt.

Proof was in his tone, spoke through a wince like the name was a punch to the gut.

Felt like it. Felt like a hollowing out, a removal of things inside he needed to function.

**“How did she die?”**

He grit his teeth. Dug heels into the floor, strained against the bindings keeping him bound to the bedpost.

He didn’t have inhuman strength, though. Couldn’t nullify other metas. He couldn’t break free.

He couldn’t resist.

_“She killed herself.”_ He hissed through grit teeth.

The feeling of something removed grew. A lid lifted off the well of guilt still there in him.

**“How did she kill herself?”**

Cain thrashed. Made a sound, a pained animal growling in warning.

Nialls waited it out. The weight of the compulsion crushing, breaking resistance until there was none left.

“She _overdosed_.” Cain finally choked out.

**“Who found her?”**

The growling crested and broke into a hurt noise. A whine of pain, desperation.

_“I did.”_ There was a tiredness in his tone, a hairline fracture but not a break.

Nialls stood. Moved around, left. Cain gasped in his absence, free of the weight, trying to breathe against the pit in his stomach. Reminding him of the pieces of himself she’d been buried with. Images of her were behind his eyelids, filling the darkness with ghostly lines. The curve of her face, the sheet of her hair. It was blurry. He forgot a little more every year. Couldn’t remember what side her beauty mark was on anymore. Couldn’t remember the sound of her voice when she sang. Couldn’t remember the exact curve of her smile.

Nialls returned. The smell of food came with him.

Warm. Steak, seasoned- salt, pepper. Vegetables- butter, more salt.

The same routine with the water started. An order to open, to shut. To chew, to swallow.

He did the mechanical motions under the weight of every order settling against him heavily.

For once, Nialls didn’t speak during the process. He gave orders until it was done, made no other comments.

When it was finished he rose, left. Smells faded. Cain’s head tangled between Anastasia and food. The more he tried to focus on one, the more he fell back to the other.

Her discolored body, choked to death on vomit. The acrid smell of puke, the bulging gloss of her eyes.

Every time Renault got sick, he thought of her. Never told anyone, though. Wasn’t fair to them.

Nialls came back.

Settled back into his chair.

Gave it a moment before continuing.

**“Your brother is still alive?”**

“..Yes.”

**“Where is he now?”**

“I don’t know.”

A pause, considering things.

Nialls breathed easy. Calm, composed. Cain waited it out, expecting some new weight to drop.

**“How do you feel about your sister’s death?”**

He’d expected hurt, but not like that. A blow dealt without the right warning, cut straight to the core.

He made a pained noise, curled forward. Whined. Nialls waited it out.

“It’s..” he fought it. Lost. Like always.

But kept fighting all the same, each time. Every time.

“It’s _my fault_.”

**“Well yes, that’s obvious.”** Nialls sighed passively.

Somehow, him saying so twisted the knife dug into him.

**“But why is it your fault? Tell me in detail. Top to bottom.”**

The weird nature of the order settled heavy and strange.

He coped with it, trying to find a way around it. Took too long.

The press of it had him spilling words before he could think about them, pouring the absolute truth into his lap as he bent forward and strained against it.

“I wasn’t there. I wasn’t at home. I should have been. I knew something was wrong, that she was getting more distant. I thought if I kept working, though.. If I just kept this job and saved up enough, we’d move out and I could make it better. I didn’t talk to her about it when she drew away because I thought I had more time.. I should have said something. I should have helped her. But I didn’t. She killed herself and I just watched and let her for weeks. I should have stayed home from work, I should have been there with her I-” He choked over himself. Sobbing. Breaking. His face contorted, lips pulled back over bared teeth. They grit. He ached, a sound for it spilling between his teeth, sharp and hurting.

He cried. Things were otherwise quiet.

Nialls rose before anything was really calmed down.

A familiar sound- buckles, laces, leather. The hood.

“Please.” Cain choked. “God, _please_..” There was a tiredness to his voice again.

A tone too exhausted to beg with more emphasis, more energy. The voice of someone already halfway resigned to what was about to happen.

The hood slipped over. No more sound, no more smell.


	3. You Don't Like That You Like It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for explicit non-con rape scene.
> 
> Context Notes ; The plot this story was written sidelong to focused on a group of kids, metahumans and "heroes" in the public eye, called to glory openly. In secret, that call was a disguise to get them together in order to combat Nialls - a villain hiding in plain sight, using his compulsion powers to overturn the city in his favor. Initially Cain was compelled to work in Nialls' service as a villain, but was resigned to capture permanently when he became to risky to let back out openly - even with compulsion rules to force him to return and act within set parameters. After this, Cain held out hope in the heroes being able to save him and Ash on their own.

He said it had been a few weeks.

That it was June now.

Nialls made him drink water. Eat something.

**“Don’t hurt me, Cain.”** He ordered with a smooth force.

The blindfold peeled away at last. He winced, couldn’t open his eyes.

Just the red of his eyelids felt blinding.

Nialls undid the binds at his wrists. Pulled him to his feet.

Guided him into the shower, turned the cold water on.

(Cold smelled different than hot water. He couldn’t ever explain it right. A different sort of metallic, almost?)

He showered. Nialls waited in a chair outside the room, the bathroom door open.

They spoke over the sound of the water.

**“Do you like talking to me, Cain?”**

A stubborn pause. Or.. perhaps a thoughtful one.

“Yes.”

Nialls shifted in his seat. Looked inside the bathroom.

Cain didn’t need to look at him to know he was surprised.

Instead, he looked at his hands cupped around his face under the water, trying to adjust to that darkness before trying anything further. A click sounded. Nialls sat back in his chair outside the door.

**“I turned the lights off.”** He offered.

Cain tested, peeking. It still hurt, but he managed to squint just barely at the floor of the tub, adjusting to that sight before moving anymore. Nialls gave him a moment, observing, then kept going.

**“Why do you like talking to me?”**

“Because it means you’re not talking to anyone else.”

Nialls laughed, not like any noise he’d ever made before. Genuinely amused.

They lapsed again into quiet, while Cain fumbled with trying to use his eyes again.

Trying to look instead of just listening, the water making his ears less and less useful with the constant shower of splatters and rushing streams. He struggled with the shampoo for a time. Nialls left him alone until it was done, soap lathered and running over his arms idly.

**“Do you feel the need to protect people because your sister died?”**

A new pause. Cain turned his back to the door, washing soap away under the water.

“I can’t answer that with a simple yes or no.” Cain managed, though his voice was strained.

Nialls quirked a brow.

He’d given a lot of commands to a lot of people, before.

Next to none had ever managed an answer like.. _That_.

**“Why not?”**

“The truth is too complicated.”

**“Then tell me the truth. All of the truth.”**

Another pause. Struggling to find the words under the weight of compulsion.

Just like before, when he couldn’t in time, the resistance broke and things he didn’t even know to say poured out. Words deeper than his conscious mind could reach bubbled up, drug out by the metahuman impulse.

“I’ve wanted to protect people all my life. Ever since I can remember wanting anything. I wanted to keep my brother and sister safe when mom was angry. I wanted to keep them safe when their bodies started to fail them. I wanted to keep my brother safe when Ana.. When she took her own life. Even when I left home, when I was with Masi.. I wanted to protect the other kids there, too. I wanted to protect some of the clients, even. I wanted to protect the working girls on the streets when I got out of there, and I wanted to protect more and more people the more places I went and the more I met. I.. don’t think it’s because Ana died. I’ve felt this way before then. It’s just who I am. But her passing.. It made it stronger, maybe?”

He paused. Turned to face the water directly, and sighed into it.

“I want to protect Ashley because she deserves it. I want to protect the hero kids because they deserve it. It’s not about making sure they don’t end up like Ana. It’s.. deeper than that. Older than that. I just don’t like seeing people in pain. If I can stop it, I should. I will.”

Things sank into quiet for a time. He finished washing off, turned the water off himself.

Nialls stood, bringing in a towel and handing it over. He toweled off still standing in the tub.

**“Who doesn’t deserve your protection, then?”** Nialls asked quietly.

Cain paused in drying his hair, sliding the towel down away from his face and ears.

Staring with eyes wide open at last, he looked to the wall. Mulled it over before obeying the impulse.

“Vito Masi.”

Nialls stared for a long moment.

Then he turned away, left the bathroom.

Cain waited in the bathroom doorway as he packed things into a box on the bed, the hood disappearing into it before he shut the box and hefted it under one arm.

**“Get in bed.”** He pointed. Cain did so.

Nialls set the box aside on the chair, then moved to undo the knot of his tie.

As Cain settled under the sheets, he pulled the tie off, set it over the back of the chair.

His suit jacket and shirt soon followed. Belt right after, shoes worked off.

He spoke up again as he peeled socks off, moved hands to his pants button and zipper.

**“Do you like it, when I fuck you?”** Nialls asked without looking over.

Cain pursed his lips in brief. “Yes and no.”

Nialls laughed again. A strange, amused noise.

**“What is that supposed to mean?”** He turned, pants undone but not off. They hung loose on his hips, a cut of his boxers visible where they slid down. For once, he wasn’t already hard at that point. Cain dipped eyes up from the crotch of his pants to his face, the answer spilling out readily to the forced want to do so.

“There are parts of it I like, and parts I don’t.”

The clarification wasn’t really clear at all. Nialls laughed again, moved over. Pointed, to the edge of the bed.

**“Move here. Spread your legs.”**

Cain did so, sliding over, pushing the sheets back out of the way.

Nialls watched him, hands grasping at his knees to keep them further parted as he stepped between them.

**“What parts do you like?”** He asked, paused. **“Touch yourself.”** The second compulsion fell heavier.

Cain moved, back arching into it automatically as he slid one hand down. He knew how to make a display of it. A game, a show. A way to build up and slip into the right headspace. Even if he didn’t want to. Even if there wasn’t any real part of him wanting sex, with this man, now or ever. He’d been trained for a long time in how to look sexy and fuck people he had no interest or care for. By now, it was easy to work his way down until he was grasping his own half-hard cock, gliding fingers in delicate patterns until his erection twitched fully in his hand. Nialls watched, waiting through the show for an answer to his other pressing order.

“Losing control. Getting hurt. Feeling like trash.”

Nialls bit his lip as Cain spoke, watching his hand move.

It was slow, but he started getting hard on his own. An unusual detail.

Nialls usually came to him already solid, aching, wanting. Wound up over something else.

Cain was only ever an outlet. A convenience, a distraction.

**“And what parts do you not like?”** Nialls spoke thickly, around a certain tightness in his throat, a carnal and base reaction that drove him husky and dark.

Cain kept going, not having been told to stop.

“That it’s with you. That I like it at all. That it means someone else was probably hurt for it to happen at all.”

Nialls grunted a little, as if to confirm he was listening, while reaching down to pull his own cock free of his pants, underwear. Once it was out he smacked Cain’s hand away, moving to grab the younger’s wrists and push them down into the bed as he rocked hips forward, settling between the other’s legs.

**“You don’t like that you like it?”** He laughed breathily. **“How can you like it when I fuck you but not like that I’m the one doing it?”** He ground forward, huffing slightly as their dicks brushed, a teasing friction but little else. His hips fell into a certain pace in that, rocking back and forward again, never really getting much but passing touch, enough to twitch against.

“Because you’re disgusting.” Cain said flatly. Nialls’ attention shot back up to his eyes, teeth grit and a sneer replacing his previously hazy expression.

“You hurt people I care about. You torment strangers for amusement. You’ve ruined the life of the girl I love and killed the man who was true family to me. I hate you, and everything you stand for, and every time you’re inside of me I think about killing you.” He looked Nialls dead in the eyes. Not glaring, not really. Just stern. Determined and unwavering around every syllable.

Nialls’ cock twitched. He laughed again, then moved without warning to slap the blonde across the face with a jarringly loud crack. Hands snapped to his throat instantly, pushing the other back onto the bed as he grasped, squeezed. Nialls rocked up onto his knees on the edge of the bed, looming over the other, bearing all his weight down into it as he choked Cain.

**“Liar.”** Nialls hissed, straining with the force he put into it.

**“You said Vito Masi, and him alone, when I asked you who didn’t deserve your protection.”** He huffed a weak, breathy laugh. **“Some part of you wants to protect me. Some part of you likes me. You like it when I fuck you raw. Admit it.”**

Hands released his throat. Cain didn’t cough, didn’t sputter.

He blinked a bit, a rush of blood returning from previously crushed veins.

“I like some parts of when you fuck me.” He cheated around the compulsion.

Nialls slapped him again, hard enough his hand came back stinging and red.

He scrambled, uncharacteristically frantic, to wrench open the drawer of the endtable, clawing at the bottle of lube there to grab it, open it. A liberal amount uncaringly poured down, over both their cocks, before Nialls grabbed them both with one hand, squeezing together, hissing a breath out against the heat and pressure. Cain flinched, bit his lip, but didn’t make a sound.

**“Tell me you like it when I fuck you.”** Nialls growled, stroking sudden and harsh.

Cain flinched again, back arching off the bed, teeth grit against the want to make a sound.

The new order felt like lead bricks, crushing down into him with no way around it.

“I like it when you fuck me.” He hissed, strained with resistance.

Despite obeying, Nialls slapped him again, pulling away and letting go of slick erections.

_**“No!”**_ He shouted, weirdly frantic sounding. Fingers slipped into the blonde, too fast, too much.

Cain winced, a sharp breath through teeth hissing. Eyes slammed shut, hands balled fists into the sheets.

**“That isn’t- isn’t good enough! It’s not right!”** Nialls fucked him rough, with no concern for pleasure or pain or anything at all beyond purely stretching him out enough to use. Cain grit against it, taut lines of strain head to toe.

**“Tell me how you really feel!”** Nialls barked.

“I hate you!” Cain snapped back, readily, angrily.

Nialls slapped him again, adding a third finger right after.

**“Say you love me!”** He ordered.

Cain fought it. Thrashed, hissed, shouted into it before the noise bled into furious sounding words.

_“I love you!”_

Nialls outright shouted. No words, just a sound, slapping the other again before impatiently pulling fingers out, lining his cock up before forcing hips forward. The mess of lube between them both made it slick, but not entirely easy. He pressed in a few inches all at once. Cain gasped, scars across his body flickering blue to purple. Nialls jerked out, slammed forward again, a few inches deeper. He repeated, watching scars flicker colors- blue to purple, purple to red -until finally one thrust forward lodged him balls deep into the one beneath him.

**“Say it honestly! Say you love me and you mean it!”**

“I love you and I mean it!” Cain spat back. Nialls struck him again.

**“No, you don’t! No one ever does! Liar!”**

Unusually flustered, shouting, Nialls’ hair spilled messy around his face. Eye alight with some raging, wild emotion. He grasped, a touch too hard, at Cain’s cock, and held it tight as he glared down at him.

**“You’re worthless!”** Nialls boomed. Felt the cock in his hand twitch.

**“Your sister died and it’s all your fault! Everyone you know hates you, deep down. You’re an idiot, an inhuman beast, and the only thing you’re good for is getting fucked!”**

He ripped his hips back, slammed forward again. Jerked his hand with the movement, and kept the pace going, merciless and rough as he fucked the blonde, jerking him off cruelly with each reentry.

**“Tell me how you feel right now!”**

“It’s too much! Too much- Stop!” Cain protested. Hands scrambled, trying to pry Nialls’ hand away.

**“Quit fighting it!”** Nialls spat, smacking hands out of his way as he continued.

Cain whimpered, hands retreated. Back to balling into the sheets as he grit against the force.

Nialls stopped shouting, focus narrowing down just to the feeling as he railed the blonde, ignoring the whimpers and choked noises with every motion. Cain came first by far, shuddering against every rough stroke until he was shaking, crying out, flinching and whimpering and bawling at the rush of too much sensation. Nialls kept going, even when the blonde turned raw and red in his hand, practically seizing from every harsh rub of overstimulation.

**“Tell me..”** he panted, growing tense and close to the edge. **“Tell me if you like this or not..”**

Cain sobbed beneath him, arched up at such a sharp angle it seemed painful in and of itself. One hand was still fisted in the sheets, the other arm draped over his eyes, every line of muscle in his arm a tight line.

“..Yes.” The blonde choked after a moment.

**“Tell me honestly.”** Nialls huffed, slamming forward as hard as possible, ignoring how the bedframe shook, how his muscles burnt with the motions.

“Yes.” Cain said again, shuddering a sob around the word.

**“Why?”** Nialls snapped, still going. **“Tell me why you like this.”**

“Because..” Cain wailed slightly, a dragging and low noise like a dying animal. “..it hurts.”

**“Do you like it when I hurt you?”**

“Yes.”

**“Do you want me to keep doing it?”**

“Yes.”

**“Why?”**

“Because I deserve it.”

Nialls snapped a noise, tight and strained as he rammed into the other deep, senses prickling with the rush of an impending orgasm snapping through his nerves. He hissed a tense noise through his teeth, pulled out, forced himself with shaking limbs to stop there and breath deep, cold air against his cock maddening.

It took him a few moments of desperate gasping before he could speak.

**“Beg for it.”** He managed breathlessly. **“Honestly.. However you want.. Beg for it, if you really want it.”**

Cain shook nonstop, crying and trembling, cock raw and twitching weakly even as Nialls let go at last, let him curl into himself some and keep his face covered. Shame and hurt and a weird desperation all mixing, churning in him sickly under the compulsion that was more sheer invitation.

“Please..” The blonde sputtered, choking over the bawled words.

“Please hurt me. Finish inside me. Use me to get yourself off.”

He bit his lip until it bled, saying no more.

Nialls huffed what could have been a laugh if he’d had more air in his lungs.

A moment after he drove his cock into the other again, returning to the same vicious force. His hand found the younger’s dick again, grasping, dragging strokes against it. Cain jerked, flinching and shaking and wailing under him. Nialls didn’t stop a second time as he crested towards the edge, hovering at it for frustrating seconds before finally, sinking every inch of his cock into Cain, he came hard with a gutteral shout. Stars popped in his vision, senses faded out to a rush of euphoria. For a few moments, there was nothing but release and ecstasy.

As the world fell back into place, he let Cain go, barely registering the blonde had cum again, the mess of it splattered into Nialls’ hand. He pulled out, stood up shakily. Watching his own load slowly drip from the other before turning away, wobbling off to the shower.

**“Get some sleep, dog.”** He ordered wearily on the way.

Cain didn’t move a muscle. Too raw to so much as flinch anymore, scared of every possible chance for more friction against raked raw nerves. He shut his eyes, fell limp. Obeyed the exhaustion more than the compulsion, and fell into a sleep he wasn’t sure ever really ended until-


	4. I Will Break You

The hood laces came undone.

A layer he hadn’t even consciously perceived peeled away.

The lines between reality and not were all but gone. He couldn’t tell anymore where dreams began and ended, where something and nothing were divided. If he’d slept the whole time, or never at all, he wasn’t sure. He remembered Nialls. Fucking. Water running. Then the nothing- a sprawling mass of no time, no sensation. No sense or consciousness, a swirl of no existence.

Nialls didn’t tell him how long he’d been under that time.

He brought food and water again. Made him shower again, all in silence save the orders to chew, swallow, drink, not attack him. The blindfold stayed on again, even through the shower. When it was over, Nialls towel dried him off, sat him in the floor. Rechained his hands to the bedpost, then left.

Cain listened to the sounds of the room until it was maddening, too much.

With no sight to distract it all, the smell of carpeting and tiles and the lingering scent of water in the bathroom all began to register. Sounds of dripping felt like distant thunder, pops of the house settling as others moved through it kept snapping his attention around.

He started trying to count the seconds, listening and inhaling deep to smell and prove the world was still there. He counted a minute. Thirty. Sixty. Ninety.

Nialls returned an hour and forty-six minutes later.

He shut the door behind himself.

Took up spot in the one chair in the room. Waited, a few minutes of quiet, then spoke calmly.

**“Do you know how long you’ve been living like this?”**

“A month or.. Two?” Cain muttered back.

**“It’s August.”** Nialls replied, flat.

**“What was your childhood like?”**

He launched right into it. Cain’s jaw tensed. Resistance.

Still fighting. Still remembering to fight, even if it felt pointless sometimes.

_It's only over when we fail to realize we're still in the fight._

“Rocky.”

**“Elaborate.”**

“My father was never home and my mother was a psychopath.”

**“How was your mother a psychopath?”**

“She couldn’t understand what was real and what wasn’t. She believed a lot of things that never made sense. She beat me. Tried to beat my siblings. She didn’t take care of us, usually. She had upswings and downswings. On the good months she’d try to cook and clean a little. On the bad ones I had to do everything while she threw fits around me.”

A lapse of quiet.

**“Do you love your mother?”**

“Yes.”

**“Why? How? How can you love someone who was so terrible?”**

“She.. wasn’t terrible. I didn’t say that. She was just.. Troubled. It wasn’t her fault. Severin wouldn’t take her to a doctor, no one would help her. She was sick but they wouldn’t do anything for her. I felt bad for her. If she’d gotten treatment, maybe..”

He trailed off. Nialls gave it time, but when Cain didn’t continue he pressed on.

**“She’d what? Maybe get better? Maybe love you, take care of you?”**

“...Maybe.”

Nialls stood. Walked closer. Knelt down, in front of him.

Cain shifted away automatically. Wary. Waiting for a blow to land, or something worse.

**“I could love you. I could take care of you.”** Nialls whispered.

Cain tensed. Hesitated to speak, then, “I don’t think you can really love anything.”

He expected a hit to come. It didn’t. Nialls was quiet. Breathing paused, then continued slowly.

**“Maybe I can’t. Does that bother you?”**

“Not really.”

**“Why not?”**

“I’m used to people like you.”

Nialls huffed an almost-but-not-really-laugh.

**“You mean Ashley?”**

“Among others.”

**“Have you met a lot of people like me and her before?”**

“Sort of. I’d rather you not put her in the same category as you though.”

Nialls laughed, but it wasn’t honest amusement. Fake and guarded and contained neatly.

**“Why not? You just did. You implied we’re the same because you don’t think we can love anything.”**

Cain didn’t say anything back, the weight of compulsion not there to make him.

Nialls gave it a moment. Sighed.

It took Cain a moment to realize it was hands he heard sliding against him, skin on skin over his chest, up his neck. He expected Nialls to choke him but he kept going, stroking fingers over the sides of his face, though his hair. Petting him, as he went on.

**“You baffle me.”** He commented. Quiet, soft. Almost.. Fond?

**“You love so many terrible people. You feel like even I deserve your protection. But you invite almost anything unto yourself so long as it’s a kind of suffering.”**

He laughed abruptly. Another weirdly soft noise, coming from him.

**“You’re not even remotely human, are you?”**

Cain’s jaw tensed. A pause of quiet. Unwillingness to answer.

No compulsion fell over him. He kept his mouth shut.

**“Ashley is a very smart young lady, don’t you agree?”**

“Yes.”

**“Tell me what you think of her. Truly.”**

Another tense pause of resistance, struggle. He tensed, feeling the weight sink down, squirming against it before his jaw forced itself apart, words running out.

“She’s too young to be trying to fight you. She doesn’t know better yet. She’s too driven by revenge and impulse. She can’t see past herself enough to really stand a chance. She’s smart, but full of youthful arrogance. Beautiful, though. A body worth painting. A soul even moreso, all fire and passion and a sort of unwavering determination I’m often left in awe of. She could have grown into a woman that would have moved mountains, if not for you.”

Nialls let the words settle before laughing again, short and passive.

**“Not for me? What do you think I’ve done, stolen her passion? Killed her?”**

Cain shook his head numb and clumsy.

“You’ve crippled her growth. Put her on an entirely different path of life.”

**“Howso? Explain in detail.”**

“You killed the one man she listened to and took advice from. She’s too obstinate to follow anyone else's lead or think they know better than her now. And the more wrapped up in revenge and hate and fear you and your game get her, the sloppier she’ll play it. The more frantic she’ll grow, the less willing to trust people.. You won’t stop until she’s boring. Which means until she’s dead and buried, or just dead in spirit.”

Nialls shifted, rocking back some. The petting stopped. His hands, so far as Cain could hear and understand, retreated. Things fell into a tense, awkward silence.

**“You talk about this game a lot. Like it’s an easy thing, to discuss. To understand. To play?”** Nialls made a musing sound, stood. He moved back to his seat, settled in.

**“Are you trying to play against me right now, Cain?”**

A stubborn pause sheerly to rub it in.

He grinned, slowly but surely.

A crooked expression, sharking up more on the right, pushing at the blue scar cutting from temple to cheek on the right of his face. He hardly needed to answer at that point, but the compulsion still stood.

“Yes.” He responded simply.

Nialls was perfectly quiet for a long time.

**“I will break you, Cain.”** He said firm, but calm. A promise, not a threat.

**“I will destroy everything you are, everything you could be. I will grind you down to nothing. You know that, don’t you? You’re aware that no one is coming for you. There’s no salvation, no hope, no rescue in sight.”**

“I know.” Cain replied readily. Sound unafraid.

“But that’s no reason not to still fight every step of the way down.”

A sigh heaved out of Nialls before he stood.

Familiar sound of the hood picked up. Cain was ready for it then, when it slipped over.

When the world, and he with it, stopped existing again.


	5. What If You Were Never Hurt Again

He put on a brave face. He believed in that bravery.

But the nothing was a thing that ate from the inside out. Consuming all of everything, eroding at the mind he thought he had, the willpower he put his faith into. His picked and chipped and wore away.

When the hood came off again, he felt terrible. Shaky. Exhausted. Thirsty. Hungry.

They were difficult things to understand, without tactile sensation. But his stomach churned in weird knots, and he heard the noises it made as he bent forward. His mouth made strange noises when he moved it, too dry sounding.

Nialls came again with food- he could smell it. Grilled chicken. Roasted tomatoes. Seasoned oil, green beans, hickory wood used in whatever fire they’d smoked and grilled it all on. His stomach groaned.

This time, Nialls didn’t launch into the feeding immediately. He waited, pushed and pulled Cain into a shower first. After it, another toweling off. Still no clothes. Hadn’t had clothes in.. months?

** _“The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.”_ **

Cain’s face twitched briefly. Recognition. He didn’t speak though.

**“Recognize it?”**

“Yes. It’s Kierkegaard.”

**“Do you have a lot of his quotes memorized?”**

“Not in particular.”

**“Memorizing things like that just comes naturally?”**

“I suppose so.”

Quiet, save for another painful, audible churn of his stomach.

**“Are you hungry?”**

“Probably.”

**“Can’t feel it?”**

“Not really.”

**“What can you feel?”**

“Not enough.”

A new pause. Their quick back and forth settled to nothing. Nialls didn’t move, perhaps mulling over things Cain couldn’t understand without being able to see him, pick apart his expression.

**“Do you think reading poetry or philosophy will make you feel enough?”**

“No.”

**“Then why do you do it?”**

Cain was quiet. Expression tense, confused, thinking.

The compulsion sank deeper and deeper, crushing, dragging out the subconscious more and more the longer he was unable to say nothing at all on his own.

“I’ve never been good with my own words. I’ve always been alone. Seeing the things other people have written, reading their feelings.. Makes me feel less alone. Knowing someone else felt the way I have sometimes, finding words to express what I can’t.. Helps me feel connected to the world.”

**“Do you have problems feeling connected to the world?”**

“Yes.”

**“Because you can’t feel touch?”**

“Yes.”

**“Is that why you like it when people hurt you?”**

“Yes and no.”

Nialls made a vaguely irritated noise.

**“And what does that mean?”**

Cain wrestled with the answer.

“I like feeling pain because it’s something I can feel, yes. But I need it for more than that. It’s just.. What I deserve. It’s the way things should be. I just like it. I need it.”

**“What if you were never hurt again?”**

A flicker of something ran through him, too muddled and quick to make sense.

Nialls pressed on, didn’t compel an answer right away.

**“What if I was gentle with you? Kind? What if I didn’t hurt you anymore, wouldn’t let you feel pain again?”**

Cain was quiet. Lips pursed. His heart skipped all wrong. He swallowed thick.

The compulsion wrapped around his throat, flooded his mouth. Sank down deep into his lungs, his core, and drug the answer back out.

“I’d go crazy.” He whispered.

Nialls was quiet again.

He brought the food closer. Told him to open his mouth in a soft tone.

Chew, swallow. The usual mechanics all through a meal. Then water, same as all the times before.

He flinched then, at the sound of Nialls petting his hair afterwards.

**“I love you, Cain.”** He murmured. Too quiet, too gentle.

“Knock it off..” The blonde protested. Trying to move. To get away.

He squirmed, against the chains keeping him bound to the foot of the bed. Where he squirmed, Nialls followed. Laughing gently. Sweetly. Petting his hair, touching his face. At every sound, Cain flinched, trying to get away from it. His stomach churned sickly, skin prickled in anxious goosebumps.

**“You’re precious to me, Cain.”** Nialls went on.

“Stop it.” He spat back, too thick with fear to really sound like a threat.

Nialls grasped at him. Straddled his lap, sat there. Keeping him still as he leaned in.

The sound of kisses dotting up his neck was slow to register, to be understood. Foreign and uncomfortable.

**“I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.”** Nialls cooed.

Cain whined involuntarily, squirming in his skin.

“Stop..” He murmured, a sharp whimper in his voice. “Please..”

**“You’re beautiful. And brave. And smart.”**

Cain squirmed and writhed, whining and trying to move away.

Nialls kept his face gently cupped in his hands, dotting kisses up.

Across his forehead, his eyelids, his nose.

**“I’m in love with you.”** Sweet, gentle words followed by a kiss.

Cain kicked at the carpet, made noises of protest against the lips pressed to his.

Nothing helped. Nothing made it stop. He felt sick, acidic and weak.

When Nialls let go and backed away, all he could do was shake and groan with true nausea.

Footsteps lead away, collecting dishes, empty water bottle.

**“Tell me you think you’re wonderful, Cain.”**

He made a sick, groaning noise before the words forced themselves out.

“I think.. I’m.. wonderful.”

**“Tell me-”**

“_Please, stop.._”

**“Tell me you want me to love you.”**

“I.. I..” He shuddered, curling forward. Anxious, tense, pale.

_“I.. want you to.. Love me.”_

Nialls moved to the door.

**“Tell me you love yourself.”**

Cain outright whimpered an exhausted, hurt noise.

He trembled. Shook his head, bit his lip. His breathing hitched, every part of him shook.

He fought it, till tears pricked his eyes. The sickness crawled up his throat slow and sure, he choked over it as the words bubbled up.

“I l- l-_lo_-” Heart racing, body tensing weird and wrong.

“_I love m-myse-self._”

The second the words were out, he spiked, lurching, throwing up everything Nialls had managed to order him into swallowing. The man at the door hummed, amused, then left.

His senses burnt, unable to process anything but the sharp, burning smells and the details of the half digested food splattered all over his lap. Nialls didn’t come back for two hours. He counted.


	6. Prove I'm Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betraying the date of this a bit, here.
> 
> Context Notes ;; A reference to an event within the main group story this was sidelong to. Cain was let out for a day, to keep him from mentally breaking too quickly for Nialls' liking. (Something that ultimately had the opposite effect.) He met up with one of the "heroes" tasked with saving him and Ash, but barred from discussing anything about Nialls it mostly turned into borderline blackout drinking after the information gathering failed.

Another shower.

The sound of something- machinery? Carpet cleaner? -ran as he bathed.

The room smelled like water and fabric soap when he came back out. Nialls took the blindfold off, sat him on the bed. Brought a box over and opened it, fresh clothes inside.

**“You should go out, today.”**

He pulled the clothes out piece by piece.

A thin tank top, an overshirt, black pants.

He laid them all out, then fetched a box of shoes as Cain struggled to squint at everything.

**“Ash practically begged me to let you. Said you could use some air, to keep your head on straight. She tried to tell me all about how you wouldn’t be very useful to me if you lost your mind.”** Nialls laughed like it was some ridiculous notion, setting out the boots from the shoebox.

**“But we both know this isn’t like that, now is it?”**

He leaned in, pecked the blonde on the forehead.

Cain flinched, his stomach automatically seizing just at the touch.

**“Stand up for me, dear.”**

Cain stood, expression betraying how deeply uneasy he felt at the words alone.

Nialls nudged him here and there, slipping the clothes onto him like a doll. Down to even the laces of his boots, the button of his pants. In the end, he pulled a phone from his pocket, handed it over. Cain took it. Recognized it. His old one, cracked slightly but still perfectly functional, everything seemingly as it had been when he’d last seen it.

He glanced at the screen.

_May 17th, 2016_. A little after eleven in the afternoon.

His head spun. How was it still May? So much had happened- months of time, of pain, of.. Everything.

He reeled at just that, trying to understand it as Nialls dotted a kiss on his mouth he was almost too disoriented to register. He flinched away from it, back of one hand pressing to his mouth anxiously.

**“Go out. Do whatever you want for the day.”**

The compulsion sank in deep, crushing, sinking him in his own skin.

**“Don’t tell anyone about what your life is like, back here. Don’t talk about me.”**

Nialls fussed with his overshirt, straightening it out, brushing imaginary dust from the shoulders.

**“Be home before this time tomorrow. If you’re not back in this house by then, kill yourself immediately.”**

The usual orders for leaving settled in heavily.

He nodded rigidly. Nialls.. Smiled at him.

Sweet and fond and so wrong Cain looked away after barely a moment, staring at the floor instead.

**“Go on, then.”**

Nialls lead the way to the room door.

Opened it. Stepped out into the hallway.

**“Have fun.”**

He walked off, disappearing out of sight.

Cain stayed in the room for a long time afterwards, unsure. But the compulsion was still there on a deep level, pushing him to walk. To leave, even when he thought about what it must have been costing Ash.

He left the house. Took to walking.

Flipping through his phone, trying to think of what to do, who to talk to. What he could say to someone, what they’d likely ask, what he wouldn’t be able to answer..

Eventually, he settled on one name over twitter.

The warm May afternoon surrounded him on all sides, weather clear, the world still at peace and turning on.

He walked through it, feeling like a foreign existence in a surreal alternate reality.

One of the _Heroes _got back to him online.

They made lunch plans.

Cain walked on in a haze, feeling less and less like anything happening was real as he went along.

* * *

"Prove that it's real."

Nothing can. Not anymore.

Not after.. everything.

Not after the way happiness felt surreal.

Safety and fun and a pain that wasn't _this pain_ felt like a fanciful dream.

Too impossible. Too nice. There's no way Nialls would have let him out.

No way people would have responded to his messages, after what he'd done. Been compelled to do.

It must have been a dream.

A strange, wild, fascinating dream..

But he was needed in the waking world.

No room for dreams. No time for them.

"Please."

A plea, as the round of mechanical orders to eat, to drink, came around.

"Prove I'm real."

When was the last time he'd felt pain?

The dream? The surreal strangeness of animal teeth..

He couldn’t track the gap between that and now.

Couldn’t decipher how long it’d been that he’d slept, drifted, lost in the nothingness of not existing.

**“You’re real, Cain.”** Nialls soothed.

The weight of the compulsion sank in.

It was fake and he knew it was fake. He could feel the edges of it impressing into him strange and wrong, pushing an idea he couldn’t swallow down his throat. His mind accepted it, on some level. Told the rest of him it was real, he was fine. But deeper than the order could press, the subconscious truth remained. Layers upon layers of it all, wrapped and packed down.

Nialls could cut deep, he knew.

His orders and compulsions with the right intensity and simplicity could dig down to his core and root there. But the ones in passing, the too unbelievable or wrong, pushed into the surface and left marks there but no deeper. He obeyed, he had to obey. He nodded, accepting the passing idea that it was real, it was alright. But he still knew, far beneath everything, that it wasn’t.

The dissonance of what he knew and what he believed created a rift.

A growing gap between his mouth and his mind where things started to muddy and tangle.

One part told him he was real, another didn’t.

Which could he trust? Which could he believe?

Which was the part Nialls had put in him, and which was the ‘real’ him?

Nialls guided him into a shower. He lost the ability to tell, in there, what parts were and were not ‘really’ him.

What things had and had not happened. What memories were his own and what were things Nialls had put in him. It was a paranoia he’d fought for a long time, now. A sickness he’d always had but always fought. He’d had to. For Ash’s sake. For the sake of the kids, the friends, the lovers still out there fighting, too.

But how long had it been since he’d seen any of them?

Was Ashley still alive? Was the fight still going?

Or had it ended months ago? Were they all dead, and Nialls just let him keep going, struggling for the sake of corpses and deserters?

He washed his hair out. The undercut he’d once had was longer, shaggy. He didn’t know.

Couldn’t feel it between his fingers, didn’t look at it in the mirror. Couldn’t mark the pass of time with it, same as he couldn’t mark anything by the stubble starting to grow in that was just as numb to his fingers.

He bathed. Stepped out. Toweled off and went to stand by the bed, unsure if today was a day he’d be returned to the floor, or the bed itself. Nialls rose when he was done, approached. Put the looping buckled cuffs back around his wrists, and pushed him onto the bed.

**“Do you want me to hurt you?”** He asked, the first noise in what seemed like hours.

Cain sat on the edge of the bed, trying to ignore the automatic streak that ran through him. Wanting, eager, desperate. Nialls waited for an answer, the heft of compulsion not in the words. Cain stared at the floor.

Lips parted, but it took him an extra lapse of time to manage an answer.

“Yes.” He offered, simply. Quietly.

**“Why?”** Nialls pressed.

Cain bit his lip. Wasn’t sure what to say, how to say it.

So he didn’t.

**“I won’t.”** Nialls settled on that, pulling the sheets back on the bed and nudging Cain until he slid under them.

**“I won’t hurt you. Not ever again.”** He said it like a sweet promise. It felt like a death sentence.

He fastened the chain around the bedpost, hooked it to the cuffs.

**“Don’t try to break out of these.”** He said in passing, the compulsion an almost gentle weight.

Nialls dipped down. Kissed his forehead. Cain flinched but didn’t otherwise fight it.

**“Sleep well.”**

He turned off the lights on his way out.

Cain stared at the wall. Listened to the shower drip. Inhaled slow the smell of the room, the laundry, the water. Somewhere else in the house, people had murmured conversations. They walked around. They lived a life so wholly distant and apart from him it felt strange. The way children imagined monsters under their beds and fairies out in the woods. He imagined conversations and people. Strangers living lives out in a great big world that felt less and less real with every passing hour.

Four of them went by. He counted them, second by second.


	7. A New Kind of Numbness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for an explicit non-con rape scene.
> 
> Context Notes ;; In the plot of the main story this was sidelong to, Nialls had another chaotic-villain that worked for/with him. A manmade "metahuman" of software and advanced technology able to bond to nonmetahumans only. It built most of its personality from internet-learning (we all know how well that works) and was named Barghest after the dog of omens. However given that it's technological, it's ultimately exempt from Nialls' compulsion. To make matters worse, it latched itself to Nialls' other captive (Ashley) as she was a nonmeta, and seemed to totally overpower/consume her psyche.

**“I really hate that damn dog.”**

Nialls came back, sighing harsh and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Cain turned, stared at him. Looked over the sharp lines of his suit, the cut of his polished shoes and slicked back hair. The same look as always. Business-like. Sharp and official and sleek.

He walked in, stood by the bed, stared down at the blonde.

Without binds to undo, a blindfold to remove, he didn’t hesitate to launch right into it.

**“What do you think of Barghest?”** The compulsion settled, a familiar blanket laying over him.

Cain shifted slightly, staring at the far wall instead of up at Nialls.

“I hate it.”

**“Why?”** Nialls moved, pulling his chair closer, taking a seat and crossing one leg over the other.

“It hurt Ashley. Betrayed everything. ..And it’s just annoying in personality.”

Nialls laughed a little. **“I can’t disagree with the personality, I suppose. But that’s what happens when you let an endless army of mouth breathing little twats online shape a consciousness.”**

He shrugged, sighed. Let the topic pass while watching Cain lay there in bed, dead-eyed staring at nothing.

**“Do you like it here, like this?”**

“Yes and no.”

Nialls smirked. Curious.

**“What do you mean? Tell me in detail.”**

“It’s maddening. I can’t tell what’s real or not anymore. I’m not even sure if Ashley is still alive, what time it is. How long it’s been. I can’t make sense of anything, I’m losing my grip on things. On myself. Nothing in this room ever changes, I’ve counted and memorized every detail there is. Now that it’s all cataloged I can just feel my head curling over on itself, eating itself. Starving.”

Nialls listened patient and amused, idly bobbing one foot along as Cain spoke.

**“And is that the part you like, or don’t?”**

“It’s both.”

**“Howso?”**

Just a touch, Nialls leaned in closer to listen.

“I deserve this.” Was all Cain offered in reply.

Nialls leaned back. Settled in his chair. Mulled it over, sighed slightly, though not in disappointment.

**“How much do you think you deserve? How much can I do to you before you break even?”**

Cain shrugged. “Everything? Nothing. ..I don’t know.”

A new lapse of quiet formed. They sat in it, staring at their chosen points, until Nialls spoke again.

**“Are you afraid? Of me?”**

The compulsion settled. Cain debated, not feeling as crushed by it. Not as desperate, as driven. The compulsion wasn’t a forcing weight, it just.. _Was_. A familiar feeling for conversation. One he didn’t fight, or relent to, so much as he recognized and responded to with time.

“No.”

**“Oh?”** Nialls made an amused sound.

A parent laughing at a child saying something they didn’t know better about.

**“What do you feel for me, then?”**

“I’m.. not sure.” Cain muttered. “I don’t think I feel anything.”

Nialls smirked. Stood.

**“If I hurt you again, do you think that would change?”**

Cain looked up at him for the first time. Expression flat, but something betraying it in his eyes. A spark. Recognition. Eagerness. Hope. Nialls stared down at him, lapping it up hungrily.

“Probably.” Cain offered after a time.

Nialls smirked, moved. A hand slid under the covers, peeling them out of the way.

He reached up, undid the chains. Left the cuffs on. He pulled, prodded.

Cain sat up, shifted to the edge of the bed.

**“Undress me.”** He muttered, not moving as the blonde reached, peeling the suit jacket off of Nialls’ shoulders. Fingers worked slower with every button of his dress shirt, fighting with them slightly. He pulled the shirt up, out. Untucked it from suit pants and finished undoing it all, pushing it off shoulders and letting it collect with the jacket in the floor.

Nialls grasped at his hands then, stopping him. A gentle hold.

**“I told you.”** He spoke gently, head dipping down to dot kisses over Cain’s knuckles.

**“I’m never going to let you hurt again.”**

Again, he said it like a promise. Again, it was no more than a threat as he let the younger’s hands go, moved his own to drip down shoulders, sides. To his hips. He held Cain there, tenderly. The way a lover would.

Nialls dipped his head down again. Kisses dotting over Cain’s collar, the slope of his shoulder and neck. Up his throat, to just below his ear. It took time, to build to anything. A great deal of resistance went into every motion. Fighting the impulse to bite, to scratch, to choke.

**“Wrap your arms around me.”** An order. Cain obeyed.

Kisses leaked down over his chest, soft pops of lips on skin. Harmless and entirely numb to dead nerves.

He pushed the blonde back tenderly, spread him out across the bed. Remembered, in passing, how like his times with Ashley this felt. Smooth and gentle and careful.

He took his time, trying to remind himself how this was a game of control.

Ultimately he still had to think back to last time, other experiences, just to get hard. When he was, Nialls huffed slightly at the touch of cool air as he pulled his cock free, reached for the endtable with less frenzy than last time. Less need. It was a slow and careful process, when he found the lube. Measured out a mild portion onto his hand, tracing patterns first as if to tease before slipping fingers into the blonde.

Cain whined, soft and low, for all new reasons.

He squirmed, bit his lip. Until Nialls told him to stop that.

No pain allowed. Not anymore.

He worked up to it slowly, gently. But even after stretching the other out and sliding in inch by painfully slow inch, Cain wasn’t hard. Wasn’t remotely engaged in the exchange, staring off at a far wall, face contorted in a certain kind of pain and misery Nialls hadn’t ever seen on him before. That look, more than anything else, made his cock twitch hard inside the other.

**“Does it hurt?”** He asked, voice soaked in a tone of mock concern.

Cain’s expression tensed, trembled. Eyes reflected glossy in the light, wet.

“No.” He whispered back, tight and mourning.

Nialls pulled out, slow. Pushed back into him in the same gradual pace, groaning at the pressure and heat and internally celebrating the pathetic detachment in the other. Limp, dead-eyed, and soon crying as Nialls continued, tender in every motion.

**“I love you.”** He muttered breathily, holding the blonde’s hips at the edge of the bed as he rocked forward into him. Cain said nothing. Looked away the entire time. His lips shook, wanting to bite but remaining unable. He cried as quietly as possible, and something in the strange look of it all was enough to drive Nialls crazy. He picked up the pace, slowly but surely. Never moving harshly, always mindful of the friction and the force. When he couldn’t help his hands from pressing into the bones of the younger’s hips he let go, leaning forward to press hands to the bed at either side of the other.

**“I’m going to cum inside you.”** A warning. Maybe a promise.

His breath hitched with every push and pull, dragging out of Cain just to slide back in. Agonizingly slow. A long tease. This time, certainly, lasted far longer than before. Building with a kind of edging madness up to anything, just for the pace to keep it there, burning just on the cusp of release.

**“Do you want me to?”** He asked, burying himself deep into Cain, the carefulness of it all barely garnering a reaction. He cried still, stared at the far wall still, laid out still and not even grasping at sheets to cope. There was, after all, nothing to cope with. He registered the feelings, understood it. Could feel the sex, in a vague and detached way. But it wasn’t.. Anything, really. Wasn’t good, wasn’t bad. Just a strange kind of sensation, lacking enough it might as well have been happening to someone else.

“It doesn’t matter.” Cain whispered, voice hitching as Nialls pushed back inside, groaning with the teasing of the sensation. He laughed a little, husky. Cain just trembled slightly beneath him. “I don’t care.”

Nialls outright laughed again in the face of it. In how entirely pathetic the other looked.

Curling down over him more, he buried his face into the curve of his throat, layering kisses up the skin, to just below his ear. He groaned, having to fight the urge to move faster, harder. Instead just rocking through the same careful, gentle pace.

**“I love you, darling.”** Nialls huffed against him, riding at the edge of release so hard it felt near blinding.

**“You’re beautiful. I’m going to take care of you, forever. I’ll never let you feel pain again.”**

The words were throwaway nothings. Things he knew would do what they were supposed to. Even if it gave him no joy, no real pleasure. He said it because it was what he had to say, for this. To get done what he wanted to do.

Cain whimpered, choking on a sob. Nialls pulled back enough to watch him, staring down at the other desperately crying, trying to keep quiet. It was that, and memories of better times, that finally served enough to push him over the edge.

**“Ah- _fuck_.”** Nialls hissed, sharply jerking forward to sink in deep, flinching and shaking through each wave of sensation. He came, hard for all the time spent teasing it, gasping at the surprisingly hard wave of pleasure. It hadn’t been what he’d call fun. But the orgasm was hard, and he rode it out for longer than anything before, pulsing inside the other until empty.

When it passed and he stood panting, leaning over the bed to stay steady, Cain remained unchanged.

Looking away, crying. Limp and disinterested in the entire affair. Nialls grinned, watching him. Soaked it up for a few more moments before finally pulling out, humming amusedly at the way the blonde flinched against it.

He left to shower.

Cain didn’t move. Not until Nialls came back, refastened the chain to the cuffs around the bedpost.

Nialls drew the sheets back up. Left him there like that, leaking and distant.

The blindfold came back over him, but nothing else.

Nialls killed the lights on his way out again.

**“Rest well, darling.”**

The door shut and locked behind him.

The tears stopped after a while. A pervading numbness taking place where anything had been strong enough to cry over at all. A new kind of nothing started to take root in him.


	8. You'd Do Better As Mine

The next time he came back was with food again.

Another meal. More water. Another shower.

The sheets were changed out as he showered. He listened from the bathroom, blindfold still in place. Things were quiet, as seemed normal. He’d adjusted to it fully by then, whenever then was exactly. No more sounds than fabric, water, Nialls’ voice. He could remember the idea of other things- other voices, music, animal calls. But it had been so long..

The water cut.

The sheets finished while he was toweling off, able to mostly do it himself now even without seeing. Nialls came in to finish up his still slightly clumsy work, drying out his hair before letting him find his own way back to the bed, navigating it well enough without sight. He knew the number of paces by heart. When to turn, to sit. He perched on the end of the bed, and the telltale creak signed Nialls sitting in his chair.

**“Ashley is still very much alive. I believe you were concerned about that before?”**

Cain nodded. Nialls continued smoothly, **“She’s fine. We set a date for the wedding. You are, naturally, invited. I’d rather like you to attend as a groomsman, actually.”**

Nialls chattered like it was no more than some brunch meeting, somewhere casual. Perhaps someplace sunny. He hadn’t seen the sun in what felt like ages..

**“Do you believe me? That she’s alive?”**

“Yes.”

**“Oh?”** Nialls hummed slightly, interested. **“Why? Do you trust me?”**

Cain’s features pinched briefly, as if he didn’t understand the question.

“No, I..” He didn’t trust Nialls. Not really. Wasn’t sure how to identify that sensation anymore.

“I just.. Need to believe that.”

**“Ahh.”** Nialls hummed, nodding. Understanding, sort of.

**“If she died, what would you do? What do you think would happen to you?”**

Another flinch in his features. He was quiet for a while, barely noticing the compulsion pressing down and forcing words to bubble out after a time.

“I would die, too.”

**“You think I would kill you?”** Nialls laughed.

“No.” Cain said readily. “But all the important parts of me would die with her.”

Cain shrugged, like it was simple fact. Nialls laughed some more.

**“You’ve a very dramatic romantic.”**

Cain didn’t say anything in reply. It hadn’t been a question.

Nialls gave it some time, seemed to mull something over to himself.

**“There’s nothing in the world I could say to make you believe she isn’t on your side, is there?”**

Cain shook his head. Nialls sighed, a humored noise for the most part.

**“I suppose that’s what makes it so perfect. You really are the ideal tool..”** Nialls shook his head.

Cain was getting better at picking the sounds of the small movements out. A shrug of the shoulders, shake of the head, small shifts in place.

**“A shame you’re on her side and not just mine. She doesn’t know how to use you best. She thinks this love game is the best angle. That you’re best as a weapon to make the others feel.. Empathy, I guess. They pity you, want to save you. It’s a good distraction. So long as they stay focused on you, it buys time for us to work on everything else. But, still.. I can’t help but mourn the simplistic clumsiness of it all.”**

Nialls went on. Cain listened, because there was nothing else to do.

**“I suppose it doesn’t matter. You won’t believe me either way. Maybe I’m lying, just to screw with you. Maybe I’m saying all this to plant a little bit of doubt in you. Or, maybe..”**

He stood. Came closer. Cain didn’t flinch, didn’t draw away. He let Nialls come close, cupping his face in both hands delicately. **“Maybe..”** He whispered, lingering close. Cain could smell it more than anything else, when Nialls was in his face, lips poised over his own as he kept talking.

**“Maybe I’m jealous that she has such a wonderful toy all to herself, and she isn’t even using it right.. You’d do better, as mine. You know that, don’t you?”**

A heartbeat pause. The compulsion settled.

“Yes.” Cain muttered back at him. “I know.”

Nialls laughed. Kissed him tenderly, pulled away.

**“How do you think I’d use you, if you were mine?”**

A pause. Considering it. Complying to compulsion without even thinking about it anymore.

“Hard to say. For whatever you wanted, I guess. Killing people. Hurting them. Scaring them. Lying, pretending to be whatever is convenient. Whatever does what you want done on a given day..”

Things sank back into quiet. Nialls moved away, pushed his chair back.

**“You know..”** He spoke passively as he moved around. **“I’m sure in that line of work you’d be likely to get hurt an awful lot..”**

Nialls shrugged. Cain remained still, quiet. No expression.

After a bit he came back over, something moving with him. A box set down. A familiar sound of buckles, the smell of leather. No.. _no, no, no.._

**“But it’s neither here nor there.”** Nialls commented. He moved. Fastening the old, familiar bindings.

Cain flinched, whined. Didn’t fight it, beyond the small struggle. Sounds of protest. Whimpering that threatened to build to tears. Nialls laughed delicately at it all.

**“What? You act like you haven’t been through this already.”** He teased, fastening a buckle down.

Cain shook in place, whining the words. “Please, don’t.. _Please_..”

**“I don’t see what the problem is, really.”** Nialls pushed him back onto the bed, kept going.

**“You’ve been through this so many times now, I honestly figured you’d grown used to it.”**

“I don’t- I-” Cain stammered, trying to manage words through the rising, suffocating panic.

“I was good, I- I won’t- _please, please_\- _don’t!_”

Nialls laughed openly at him, a bubbling and energetic noise. Amused.

**“Tell me why this scares you.”** He ordered.

Cain shivered, whimpered out the words around building tears.

“It.. I don’t.. It’s nothing. It’s _nothing_.” Even with compulsion, he struggled just to explain it.

“I don’t exist anymore. Nothing does. It’s.. _dying_. It’s dying and it’s nothing and _please-_”

**“Does it hurt?”** Nialls interrupted.

“Wh.. What?” Cain hesitated. Scared. Unsure.

**“Does it hurt you, to go through this?”**

“I.. It.. N-Not.. Physically, no..”

**“Good.”**

The hood came over. Things blotted out.

Back to nothing.

* * *

He stared off at nothing.

The sheets were getting changed out again. He was back in the shower. Water hot, burning.

He couldn’t feel it. He could smell it. Could see the way his skin turned red-pink under it.

The blindfold was gone. The hood gone. The bindings gone. For now.

Nialls changed out the bedsheets. Flipped the mattress. Put the new sheets on.

When it was finished he came to linger in the bathroom doorway, arms crossed loosely.

He was in casual clothes today. Slacks, a polo shirt. What for, Cain didn’t ask. Not his business.

**“You look nice, like that.”** Nialls spoke up.

Cain paused, washing his hair. Eyes opened. He stared at Nialls, expression flat. Not sure how to process that, what it meant, what it was leading into. They stared at each other for a moment in quiet. Nialls softly smiled, amused looking but not in any particularly devilish way. Just idle, pleasant. Just there.

Cain returned to washing his hair.

**“You don’t take compliments very well.”** Nialls pointed out.

It wasn’t a question, so Cain didn’t respond.

**“You get anxious whenever someone says something nice about you. You try to avoid it. You’re so screwed up you can’t even talk kindly about yourself without getting sick.”** There was a trace of a laugh in his voice, but he didn’t let it bloom into anything. Cain practically ignored him, bathing still. Saying nothing back to the accurate observations.

Nialls stepped further into the bathroom. He leaned into the sink counter, watching.

**“Why doesn’t it feel good to you, when people say nice things? Is it because your sister died? You blame yourself that badly? Or is it because that’s what they taught you, on the boat?”**

Cain waited for the compulsion to settle over him, but it didn’t. He turned his back to Nialls intentionally, washing arms off. The sound of the shower water changed. Cain flinched, when he looked back just to realize Nialls was there, behind him. Stepping into the shower partway just to run hands down his back.

There was no move made to get away. To stop him.

It was weird, sure. Nialls’ clothes started to soak through, his hair plastered down into his face. This was the kind of thing crazy people did. So it didn’t feel very out of place. Cain turned away again. Kept washing. Let Nialls do whatever he wanted to. It didn’t really matter.

**“When did you get this done?”** He traced the outline of the scarification up and down the blonde’s back.

“A summer in India.”

**“Did it hurt?”**

“Yes.”

Things dipped into quiet. Nialls’ skin was turning red-pink. He moved, turning the cold water on. Most of the angry steam from the shower started to die out as it cooled into a passive lukewarm. His attention went right back to Cain.

**“Did you ask for it, or did someone do it to you?”**

“I asked for it.”

**“Why?”**

Cain shrugged. Scraped a layer of skin off his chest with how hard he was unintentionally washing.

Nialls tutted at him, nudging his hands away and prodding him into turning. Hands took the soap, a rag. Started to do it himself since the blonde seemed unable.

“Because I knew it would hurt. And it’s pretty.”

Nialls hummed. Interested. Curious.

**“Do you think it makes you look pretty?”**

“No. I figure most people hate it.”

At that, Nialls made an old noise. A bark of honest, strange amusement.

**“Then why did you get it done? I swear, you’re one giant contradiction.”**

Cain just stared at him blankly as he prodded him to turn around again, washing his back.

“I like the way it looks. The man who did it.. He was nice. Old. We talked a lot, as he worked.”

Cain fell quiet. Nialls just considered the strangeness of it all, not feeling any closer to real answers.

**“This summer in India.. Did you know Ashley at the time?”**

“Yes.” Cain nodded.

**“She let you get this done?”**

“I don’t think she much cared, really.”

A new lapse of quiet. Nialls worked down to his legs, back up after he turned around.

Until it was over and they were left standing there, Nialls’ eyes on his scratched chest.

He watched the way the water ran down over the blue crystal scars, traced one with his fingertips.

**“You heal..”** He commented passively. **“How do you have so many scars, if you heal?”**

“I didn’t always heal. It’s.. something that only happens sometimes.”

**“Under what conditions?”**

Cain shrugged. “When I sleep. When I eat. Smaller things heal on their own.”

Nialls nodded along, trying to wrap his head around it.

**“So your back.. You didn’t sleep or eat, then?”**

“No. Not until it was done.”

**“So it scarred over, then?”**

Cain nodded.

Nialls cut the water, stepped out.

He toweled his own hair off first, then worked Cain over, nudged him once dried off back out into the bedroom. He moved automatically, sitting on the bed while Nialls stripped down out of soaking clothes, laying them over the shower rod.

Cain stared. Couldn’t remember ever seeing the man entirely naked.

There was a scar on his left thigh, jagged and red. Old.

Cain didn’t ask. Wasn’t his business.

**“The more I learn about you, the less you make sense.”** Nialls commented from the bathroom.

**“Tell me how that can be. How someone can make less sense the more you know about them.”**

Cain looked down, staring at the floor and thinking it over.

There was no compulsion in the words, but he spoke anyway.

“I’ve lived my whole life trying to push people away while still caring about them. My very nature is paradoxical. It’s only logical then, that everything around me would match. More and more, churning into layers of this or that. Until it’s all contradiction and strangeness I can’t or won’t explain. You’re not supposed to dig into it. You’re not supposed to understand it. The fact you’re trying at all..” He shook his head a little, weakly. “It defies the very nature of what I’ve tried to be.”

Things simmered into a quiet. Nialls laughed, but it was low. Not so much a gentle softness as something else, hard to decipher. Quiet and strange. He walked back into the bedroom, entirely naked, towel around his shoulders.

“Can I ask you something?” Cain glanced up, hesitant.

Nialls quirked a brow. The blonde had never tried to return the treatment.

Carefully, perhaps wary, he grunted a bit. **“Sure.”**

“Are you self-conscious about your scar?” Eyes dipped down to Nialls’ thigh.

Instantly, the older’s eyes narrowed. The lines of his face went hard.

**“Yes.”** He snapped flatly, cold. He moved, taking the towel off his neck and wrapping it around his waist.

Cain just stared, expression muted but vaguely confused.

“Why? What happened?”

**“Enough.”** Nialls sighed tightly, moving for the door.

**“Get some sleep.”**

He left then, the first night in what seemed like months where Cain was left without being tied down to something, blindfolded, locked away in nothingness. He didn’t know what to do with himself.

So he stuck to the left behind words, an order without compulsion.

He laid down, staring at the ceiling. Trying, and failing, to sleep.


	9. Your Anger Is Yours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Context Notes ;; Barghest itself was self-classified as male, despite being hosted in Ash's body, which was female. Little clarification for some of the pronouns here.

He must have fallen asleep.

It was the only logical explanation, assuming the room with Nialls was reality and not the other way around. Memory dropped off in the solitary room, listening and watching and smelling everything in maddening loops, no phone to distract from any of it. His phone, and his clothes, were long since gone after returning from the one day out. He assumed it was months ago. Months, maybe weeks. Hard to tell. Time was becoming less and less relevant, here. Everything was a string of food and showers and water and talking and Nialls.. Nothing existed outside these four walls. The world beyond the bedroom door was surreal, disconnected. The only thing that felt tangible, understandable, was this place. The sounds he’d memorized the room making. The smell of the carpet, the sheets, the air. The patterns he’d mapped out in the ceiling like personal constellations.

He could remember teaching Ash about the stars.

She’d seemed so fascinated then, leaning into his shoulder, staring up at the cut of the sky visible in thick north country woods. She’d been so alive, then. So young and harmless and full of everything beautiful and strange. A star on earth, burning and blinding in otherwordly brilliance.

Now, though..

Now they were all dying stars. Giving one last flare of heat and light before fizzling out into nothing.

It had been so long already. Surely, if help was coming.. It would have by now.

He tried not to think about it. Tried to just roll over and focus on something else.

But there was nothing else. There was him, his thoughts, the ever-churning madness of his mind. A labyrinth constantly building off of itself, sprawling and changing, making new corners and pits to get trapped within. Every dead end lead back to the same point, though.

Nialls. The Heroes. Ash. Ben. Dorian. Nialls. _The Heroes_..

People he loved, people he’d die for. All potentially already dead..

How would he ever know? How could he prove they weren’t long since parted? How could he be sure they’d ever existed at all? That it all wasn’t a grand fever dream, a delusion Nialls made with that damned web of compulsions?

How could Cain prove he was Cain at all?

That he hadn’t already been broken apart, gutted, reassembled into another person.

What if Cain was someone else entirely? Someone Nialls had known once. Had killed once, perhaps.

Some unlucky bastard that had lived and died and now was reborn in the wrong skin, implanted as stolen memories and ancient names..

He rolled back over. Stared into the bathroom, eyes used to the dim light enough to see the details perfectly well. Tile. Sink counter. Marble and iron, whites and greys. Porcelain shapes couldn’t keep him occupied for long.

It came back, seeping. A black sludge pushing through the cracks, filling everything, choking out his lungs.

How did he know he was really him? Who was he? Maybe that was why his life felt disjointed and wrong? Maybe he was just some doll, made like Barghest. All artificial and wrong, a test of ‘can we’, left to rot in a room as penance for being a failed project. Maybe he wasn’t him at all. Maybe he wasn’t anybody..

Nialls came back after a while.

He came in with food, water. Cain wasn’t interested.

But the man told him to sit up, and he did. Told him to open his mouth, so he did.

Chew. Swallow. Drink.

When it was finished, plates set aside, Nialls sat in his usual chair while Cain perched on the edge of the bed.

For once though, before Nialls could say a word, Cain spoke up in a flat tone.

“Am I real?”

Nialls paused. Eyebrows rose.

As much curious as confused.

**“Do you think you’re real?”**

“I think I think I’m real.”

A quick response, like the convoluted reply was simple.

Nialls mulled it over for a time.

**“Does it matter, if you are or are not?”**

Cain shrugged.

**“What’s got you asking that all of a sudden?”**

Cain shrugged again, before properly explaining.

“You can compel people to think or feel or do whatever you want. So.. Who’s to say.. All my memories, everything I think and know.. Isn’t just something you put in me? You said it yourself, you want to gut everything out of me. How do I know you haven’t already and this isn’t the first round of you doing this?”

Nialls sat back hard in his seat. Considering it all for a long time, where they both sat silent.

After a bit, he heaved a sigh, laughing a little into the words.

**“While I’m flattered and fascinated.. No, this is the first round. To be honest, I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. About breaking you, rebuilding you. And I think my plans are going to have to change.”**

Cain wasn’t sure if he believed it or not.

How could he believe anything, anymore?

What if he wasn’t even awake? What if even this was a dream?

Maybe that was why he couldn’t feel things. None of it was real.

This world and everything, everyone, in it was just a compulsion. A figment.

Something Nialls told him once was there, so there his mind made it. But the artificial-

**_“Cain.”_** Nialls snapped his fingers a few times.

**“Are you even listening to me?”**

Hazily, he looked up, staring at the other.

Had he been talking all this time?

“What?” He murmured, detached.

Nialls sighed. Stood up.

**“Alright, that’s it.”** He turned, moved to the door, not even taking the dishes with him.

**“Wait here, don’t do anything stupid.”**

Nialls left. Cain stared down at the floor.

What counted as doing something stupid?

* * *

**“Get dressed.”** He tossed the pressed suit down on the bed.

**“We’re going to Bavette’s.”**

Cain just stared, blankly.

Nialls stared back for a time, before his jaw grit and he sighed.

**_“Get dressed.”_ **He repeated, the compulsion landing heavy.

Cain rose, moved mechanically. Pulling the suit jacket off the hanger, unraveling a fold of boxers, socks. Slipping things on piece by piece with a detached sort of obedience. Nialls watched, tense and displeased looking every step of the way.

**“Stop.”** He huffed, once Cain was at the dress shirt, struggling with buttons.

Nialls fussed his hands away, doing it himself, leaving the shirt pointedly untucked despite his own dress shirt folded neatly into pants. Once he was dressed appropriately, Nialls moved to pluck a pair of polished shoes from the floor where he’d dropped them upon entry.

**“Sit.”** He pointed to the bed. Cain did so.

Nialls worked the laces loose with irritation, slipping the first oxford on and tightening it down.

**“It’s a french steakhouse.”** He said, like it meant anything.

Cain didn’t get it. Stared, silent.

Nialls sighed again, irate, but didn’t comment further.

He finished the first shoe, then the second, then stood.

**“Follow me.”** He ordered, turning away.

Cain followed him out to the foyer, where they paused.

It was there. Leaning against the door, chewing gum.

Arms crossed, one brow quirked, curious.

“Where ya goin?” It smacked the gum. Looked Nialls over, then to Cain.

Without even meaning to entirely, he tensed. Jaw grit. His back straightened.

Nialls, mouth open to reply, paused. Looked between the two. Settled on staring at it.

**“Out. Now move.”** He huffed after a pause.

Green eyes flashed from Nialls, to Cain.

It didn’t move.

“It’s pretty late to be goin out, yknow.”

It hung around, still wanting a better explanation.

Nialls made another irritated noise.

**“I _said-_”** He started, but it moved then.

Lurched, slow and easy, to push off the door. Walk closer.

It strode up and stopped in front of Cain, staring up at him.

Chewing gum.. _Loudly_..

After a few tense seconds, it grinned. Narrowed eyes at him.

“Just eats you the fuck up, dunnit?” It laughed in his face.

Nialls was able to tense for one preemptive second before Cain had a hand around its throat, squeezing, lifting. He rushed forward, slamming the thing into the front door, hauling it higher over even his own head. Nialls groaned, pulling at his other arm, trying to coax the two apart.

It just laughed, wild and grating, kicking slightly.

_“Get out.”_ Cain spat. Cold. Hateful.

“_Make me._” It choked, one hand letting go of his wrist just to flip him off.

**“Stop it right now!”** Nialls outright shouted.

**“Let him go!”** He ordered. Instantly, Cain let go.

It landed on its feet on the floor, coughing.

Once it had its breath again, it laughed hoarsely.

Cain glared at it. Nialls stepped between them before a round two could ensue.

**“Out.”** Nialls wrenched the front door open, pointed.

Cain stayed in place, glaring, until Nialls shoved his shoulder, hissing the order again.

The weight of the compulsion, angry and sharp, was crushing.

He damn near stumbled forward, out the door.

It was all the older could do just to heave a sigh on the way down the steps, locking the door behind them and flicking the car in the driveway on.

**“You’re worse than having children, you know that?”** He huffed, heading for the car.

**“Get in.”** He motioned to the other side. Cain slipped into the passenger’s seat as Nialls turned the engine over, checking the mirrors before pulling out, away.

**“You’re real, alright?”**

An angry, but calming down, huff.

**“That should certainly prove it.”**

Cain didn’t get it for a few moments of quiet until Nialls added on,

**“I can’t just push emotions into you. Your anger is yours. Remember that.”**

He turned out of the suburban sprawl, making his way back to the main streets.

Cain turned to look out the window. The anger still bubbled down in his stomach.

He held on to it quietly. It was the only thing that felt real.


	10. Breaking You, Rebuilding You

Bavette’s was.. Fancy.

Dim lighting, dark wood and red accents. Gold flairs here and there, candles serving as lights in most places.

They had reservations, because Nialls told the hostess they did and she agreed, taking them back to a table.

They sat in a booth near the back corner. The seats, leather upholstery, were strange.

The whole place smelled like smooth liquor and cigarette smoke layered beneath rich, seasoned foods. Someone nearby was wearing too much perfume. A waitress, maybe. It was all so much he had trouble hanging on to any one thing.

Nialls was quiet, when they sat. Waiting for the server to come around before getting into any deep conversation. When she did he ordered wine, showed his ID, told her Cain was of age and she’d already carded him- didn’t she remember? The woman laughed, apologized, left.

Cain shut his eyes. Tucked his chin some, biting back a whine.

**“Too much?”** Nialls murmured after a time.

It took a minute, before Cain managed to just slightly nod.

**“Do you want to leave?”**

He shook his head.

Nialls settled back into a patient quiet.

The waitress came by with the wine, glasses of water, then left them again to their menus.

Nialls didn’t so much as glance at it, giving Cain time to settle. It took him a while, all the racket of people eating, muttered conversations, staff dipping in and out of the kitchen. All the various smells floating through the place, conflicting and changing as people ate and new plates were brought out.

When it all felt like too much, like he was about to crumble beneath it, Nialls drummed his fingers on the table. Cain snapped his eyes open. Fingers drumming meant impatience meant upset meant temper meant punishment.. He looked from hand, to face, staring up at the older warily.

He kept drumming his fingers even when he moved idly, sipping at his wine.

**“It’s nice.”** An idle comment. **“You should try some.”**

Not even thinking about it, not fully processing it was a suggestion and not an order, he reached. Took the glass with a shaky hand, drank. Didn’t taste it. Just swallowed mechanically, put it back.

**“Ah- that’s right.”** Nialls frowned.** “You don’t taste. I forgot.”**

He hummed, a weird noise. Cain didn’t bother trying to decipher it. Too scattered, too weirdly fixated on the still-drumming fingers.

**“You cook very well for someone who can’t taste anything.”**

Cain stared at the table. Shifted, uneasy. Things felt awkward. Quiet.

**“Why do you cook at all, if you can’t taste it?”**

It wasn’t a compulsion. His mouth popped open with an answer automatically anyway.

“It makes people happy.” He shrugged a little, trying to deflect the topic.

Nialls digested it for a moment, not surprised. Took another sip of wine.

**“Do you want to make me happy?”** He asked after a short bit.

Cain pursed his lips. Stared at the table. Unsure how to answer.

Ultimately he just shrugged, a passive avoidance.

Nialls narrowed his eye, didn’t make a sound.

**“Do you want to make me happy?”** He repeated.

The feel of the compulsion was familiar. Almost safe.

“I’m not sure.”

**“Why?”**

“I.. I don’t know. I’m.. not really sure of anything right now.”

Cain stared at the table, expression troubled but largely muted.

Nialls just watched him, unsure of what to do. What to say.

Things fell quiet between them again.

The server came by, asked if they wanted an appetizer.

Nialls seemed to snap out of a haze, debating and looking back at the menu on the table.

**“Yes. The.. foie gras terrine, please.”**

She nodded, left. Nialls looked back to Cain as soon as she was gone.

**“Do you have favorite foods?”**

“Kind of.”

**“Explain.”**

“I favor foods for their smell. It’s more accurate to say I have favorite scents.”

Nialls nodded, considered it for a time.

**“What are your favorite scents, then?”**

“Vanilla, usually. Strawberry, when it isn’t the overly artificial kind. I like fresh rain on concrete, and bird down, and..” He paused for a moment. Went quiet. Looked away. Nialls waited, until he couldn’t stand to anymore.

**“And what?”**

“Ash..”

Things went quiet again. Nialls sighed. Sat back.

Seemed to try to deal with the whole situation by downing his wine bitterly.

The server came around again, refilled his glass, topped Cain’s off, and disappeared again.

**“I didn’t intend for things to end up this way, you know.”** Nialls sighed.

Cain glanced up. Stared. He was still drumming his fingers, drinking at the new wine hard.

**“With Ashley and.. _That thing._”** His lips curled in a bitter expression.

“Then do something about it.”

Cain stared at him flatly. Coldly?

No expression. Dead serious. An almost demanding current behind his eyes.

Nialls just stared, looking surprised, before slowly a smile took hold.

**“Oh? What? It’s entirely mechanical I can’t compel it to-”**

Cain outright scoffed at him, venomous. Shook his head, straightening up in his seat for the first time.

“You’re not playing this game with compulsion at the forefront, don’t give me that bullshit.”

Cain tensed. Went quiet.

Nialls just stared at him like he might as well have reached across the table and slapped him.

A lapse of quiet fell hard and awkward, stretching. Cain felt his stomach tense and curl, sick and anxious.

And then Nialls just laughed, entirely too loud for public, and Cain ducked his head down.

“Shut up!” He hissed lowly, one hand covering his face. “People are gonna stare..”

Nialls laughed anyway, stopping in the drumming and just letting the sound peel out of him.

**“It amazes me how you keep coming back to this.”** Nialls settled some, shaking his head.

**“Everything I put you through and with enough time and breathing room you still snap at me.”**

Cain glared, stubborn, but self-conscious. It felt weird suddenly. He looked back down, glared at the table instead. Nialls moved, finishing the rest of the second glass before exchanging their glasses, taking Cain’s since he wasn’t touching it anymore.

**“Which brings me back to what I was saying before. How I’ve thought about my plans for you. Breaking you, rebuilding you..”** He took another sip. Smirked, confident and proud.

**“I changed my mind.”** He said it like a cat announcing he had in fact eaten the canary.

Plump and proud of himself, waiting a heartbeat for congratulations that wasn’t coming.

After a moment of waiting he huffed a sigh, tried to shrug it off and continue.

**“You’ve already been broken. Entirely too much for me to bring you down to anything lower than what you already are.”** He grinned, let it sink in, leaned in some across the table almost excitedly.

**“How does that make you feel? Tell me.”**

Cain shifted uneasily. “I don’t know..”

Nialls sighed, irritated and.. Pouting?

_**“Tell me.”** _He repeated, with real order behind it.

“Depressed, I guess.” Cain spat out.

**“Why?”**

“You’re telling me you can’t mentally torture me anymore because I can’t get any worse. How is that not depressing to hear?”

Nialls shrugged a little, looking clueless.

**“I don’t know. I’ve never felt depressed before.”**

Cain looked up. Confused. Disbelieving. “Never?”

**“No.”** Nialls seemed passive, a statement of fact he wasn’t clear why Cain found it strange.

The sky was blue, water was wet, and he’d never felt depressed. Simple things.

“Have you felt sad before?”

Nialls thought about it for a moment. Shrugged.

**“Probably?”**

Cain just blinked at him, lost in trying to conceptualize it for a moment.

“I see why you got so fixated on Ash, now..” He muttered, moving to take a sip of his water.

Nialls smiled. Proud looking- not like the usual arrogance but more like a child. Showing something off to parents, beaming when it got tacked up on the fridge. Cain wasn’t sure what to do with the weird look, so he darted eyes away, watching people tables down and away talking.

**“So? Don’t you want to know the rest?”**

“Rest of what?”

**“My plans.”**

Nialls turned the wine glass in hand, weird proud-kid look still on his face when Cain glanced back over.

Warily, knowing it was going to happen either way, he just resigned and nodded. “Sure.”

Readily, Nialls pouted. Saw through it. Didn’t care ultimately though, and recovered swiftly enough.

**“I’m going to build you back up, then. Since you’re already broken.”**

He looked so overwhelmingly pleased with himself, his plan, it was practically nauseating.

Cain just winced at him a little, trying to occupy himself even more with his water.

“There’s nothing to build b-” Cain started.

**“You’re only saying that because you hate yourself.”** Nialls immediately huffed.

Cain rolled his eyes, didn’t press it further.

“Why, then? Why bother?”

**“Why not?” **Nialls’ face scrunched up. Defensive, irritated in a snap.

Cain had no idea how to even handle him anymore.

The cool, collected, vicious man he’d labeled Nialls as was falling away the more and more he acted like a spoiled child, wanting one thing and fussing instantly when he didn’t get it. Before the whole thing could potentially turn into an argument, the server appeared again. Dropped off the terrine, asked about meal orders.

**“Yes,”** Nialls handed her his menu without even looking, eyes on the terrine, then Cain.

**“I’ll have the wet aged bone-in ribeye, and Cain here,”** he smiled across the table.

Cain just surrended to the weird fucking scenario, handing his menu off to the lady.

**“-will have the traditional filet mignon.”**

She asked how they wanted them cooked.

Nialls liked his steak well done. He didn’t comment for Cain, thankfully, since he asked her to make it as rare as the place allowed before she nodded, wrote it all down, and disappeared again.

**“Do you like the smell of raw meat?”** Nialls immediately started in on.

Cain rolled his eyes, looked at him, sighed. “Are you going to do nothing but ask me questions, still?”

For half a moment, Nialls looked almost hurt. Surprised, disappointed, unsure.

It was gone in a heartbeat as he smirked, leaning back. Looking more like the man obsessed in controlling everything. **“Fine.”** He shrugged, like he didn’t care about it at all. **“What would you prefer we talk about?”**

“You.” Cain said immediately, flatly.

Nialls rose his brows, challenging and arrogant.

**“Alright.”** He sipped the wine, rolled it around in the glass idly.

**“Ask away.”**

“How’d you get that scar on your leg?”

Instantly, Nialls glared bitterly at him.

**“An accident, you little shit.”** He snapped harshly.

Cain grinned. Kept pushing.

“What kind of accident?”

Nialls’ lips twitched into a sneer.

He sat his glass down, just shy of too rough.

He leaned in, snarled low enough even Cain almost didn’t hear.

**“You’re succeeding in intentionally pissing me off, boy.”**

Cain just moved smooth, slow. Leaning in to meet him across the table, smiling cooly.

_“Good.”_

Nialls looked ready to snap, and Cain waited for it.

But after a long moment he backed off with a hiss, snatching up his fork and shaving a piece of the terrine off. Chewing it sharply, he glared across the table at Cain.

**“_Eat_.”** It was a hard order.

Cain obeyed.


	11. If You Behave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Context Notes ;; Stockton girl is reference to one of the Heroes on the team working to try and save Cain and Ash from Nialls. Her family was large in corporate business- similar to Ashley's, which Nialls was running in her stead after their engagement.

They didn’t talk much for the rest of the night. Nialls didn’t seem to be in the mood.

Cain watched people. The intricacies of them. He listened to their conversations, still wondering on some level if any of it was real. If Nialls was even capable of pushing something so intricate onto another person’s mind. One could argue the mind could make it all itself, with the right guidance. Which was more the man’s specialty than just flat out commanding things in and out of existence. The debate raged on in self-defeating loops for the meal.

The food was good. Looked nice, well made. Smelled good. Nialls didn’t comment on it one way or another. He spoke just to give orders. Told Cain to clear the plate, told him to drink. Told him to stay put and talk to no one when he left for the bathroom, and returned later seeming in a minorly less irritated mood.

Nialls called for the check. Paid, signed, tipped, left.

The car ride home was tense if only on Nialls’ side of things, though when they got to the house he pulled into the driveway and cut the lights, but kept the car on. Doors locked.

**“Are you hoping I’ll hurt you, if you upset me enough?”** He turned to Cain.

The blonde stared at him, pulling out of a complex train of thought, barely processing what he’d said.

“I..” It took him a moment, and some confused blinking, to really get it. “Is that an option?”

Nialls sneered at him. Cain just stared back, not entirely intending to be a smartass as much as it tumbled out naturally. Getting out, seeing the world, even if it still felt strange and disconnected, helped him some.

**“I told you I wasn’t going to hurt you again.”** Nialls said sternly.

Cain’s expression turned stern to match. “I remember.”

Everything about where they were and where they were about to go back to started to sink back in.

Nialls shifted. Pressed the cigarette lighter in.

Cain’s eyes flicked from it, back to Nialls’ face.

**“Do you like me, Cain?”** The compulsion settled all too calmly.

Cain’s expression twitched, as if confused. Unsure why Nialls was asking, why like this.

“Not really, no.”

**“Why not?”**

“We’ve been over this before.”

** _“Why not?”_ **

“Because you hurt people I care about.”

**“What if I stopped? If I left them all alone? What then?”**

Cain went quiet.

Unsure of how to answer.

**“Would you like me then?”** Nialls pressed, compelling.

“I’d like you more than I do right now.” Cain spat out without thinking.

The lighter clicked out, ready.

**“Give me your hand.”** Nialls held his own out, waiting.

It wasn’t a compulsion. Cain laid his hand in the older’s anyway.

He shifted. Took the cigarette lighter carefully, turning it over.

**“Would you like me if I hurt you?”** He asked quietly, hovering the white-hot lighter over his palm.

Cain stared at it. At the brightness of it in the dim car. He swallowed thick. Thought about it. Not really for long enough though, because the threat of pain was there. The tempting promise of it, hovering, glowing.

“I’d like you more than I do right now.” He repeated.

Nialls smirked in a way that didn’t seem amused, before moving again.

He clicked the lighter back into place, let Cain’s hand go.

**“You’re going to have to earn it, if you want me to ever hurt you again. Now get out of the car.”**

They got out, went inside. Cain kept looking at his hand, thinking about what almost was. Obsessing over the tease, to a point of feeling anxious and hyperaware all over.

Inside, unsurprisingly, it sat on the steps.

Bruises around the throat..

It occurred to him only then, as Nialls locked up behind them, what he’d done.

“Ash..” He started, head clearer. Enough for the guilt to come on like a freight train.

“You hurt me.” It tucked legs up, wrapped arms around them. Frowned at him.

“You promised you’d never hurt me, Cain.” It practically whimpered.

Something cold and sharp gutted him entirely in an instant.

“I didn’t-” He started, stammered. He rose hands, took a step closer, as if to touch.

It flinched. She flinched. It felt worse than a punch to the gut. A full sectioning off, tearing him in half.

**“Knock it off.”** Nialls snapped, glaring at her small body curled up at the foot of the stairs.

Green eyes flicked over to him. Instantly its face contorted into a bitter scowl.

“You’re no fun.” It grumbled. Nialls just glared, not amused even remotely.

He grabbed Cain’s arm, practically having to drag him away. Back down the hall, past the stairs, to the first door on the left. Once inside, he heaved a sigh and started working his tie off.

**“Sit.”** He motioned to the bed. Cain did so.

He worked shoes off first, then slipped Cain’s jacket away, setting them both aside.

“I have a meeting tomorrow. With the Stockton girl’s parents.” He said, sounding tired.

Cain looked up at his face. Alert. Nervous. Afraid.

**“Oh, relax.”** Nialls sighed, rolling his eyes as he worked on the blonde’s shirt buttons.

**“She’s not even remotely interesting. They’re just concerned about the publicity.”**

Cain settled, if only barely.

**“Besides I don’t think the younger girl will be there. Too volatile. New powers, rumor has it.”**

Cain didn’t confirm or deny anything. He just looked back down, watching the man’s hands slip his shirt off, folding it aside. He said stand, Cain did. Pants next.

**“I want you to come along. I’m leaving.. _It_ here. I don’t trust it not to make a scene.”**

Cain hesitated, before nodding. Nialls worked off his pants, boxers. Told him to sit again, and took the socks.

Once it was all laid aside, he folded the bundle up to toss into the wash later.

**“If you behave..”** He said carefully, picking up the roll of clothes and shoes.

**“I’ll _consider _a proper reward.”**

More hesitation, another nod.

Nialls left it at that before turning away for the door.

**“Get some rest, Cain.”** An order.

The blonde eased down into bed as the weight of it settled.

Nialls left, locked the door behind himself.

Despite the order, Cain didn’t manage to sleep at all.


	12. Did It Matter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Context Notes ;; Another tie-in to an event in the group story. Nialls brought Cain along to a meeting with the family of one of the Heroes (unaware of the situation regarding secretly fighting against Nialls' plotting). It was typical business exchange, but highlighted the degradation of Cain's personality and Nialls' success thus far more openly.

Hours. He counted them, off and on. Lost the full track of it as his mind bobbed in and out of things.

He stared at his hands a lot. Wondering.. If it was real..

He went to the bathroom. Showered because it was there and he could and it was the only thing he really did anymore. He took it cold, let everything chill until his body shook involuntarily.

Stepping out, he avoided looking at the mirror.

Stood, staring at the sink counter, instead.

Nialls had taken most everything out a long, long time ago.

No more shaving razors, no haircutting scissors. Nothing even remotely dangerous.

Initially it had been to decrease potential weapons for the blonde to use against him.

Now, it seemed strangely perfect. Nothing he could use against himself for pain..

He went back out to the bed. Sat on the edge of it, the way he did when Nialls came by.

He stared at the chair beside the bed. The empty seat. The silent room.

“My name is Cain Basile Croix..” He said, to no one.

“I was born in Lyon, France. January 22nd, 1991.”

He rose his hands. Stared at them, and the way they shook slightly.

“My sister Anastasia overdosed intentionally when she was fifteen.”

He went quiet. Watched the chair.

The room was silent for a while.

“My brother Alphonse is attending Cambridge as a quantum physics major..”

Another pause. Unblinking stare at the chair.

“I haven’t spoken to my mother since I left home at sixteen. I saw my father.. A.. year ago?”

He rose hands. Rubbed his face. Ran them back through wet hair.

How long had it been? What day was it? Month? Year?

Did it matter?

....it didn’t matter.

Time was irrelevant.

If he existed, however he existed, whatever he was..

Time didn’t matter to him.

“I’m.. I..”

His expression, muted, pinched.

“I loved a girl named Ashley.”

The water dripped in the background from the showerhead.

The house creaked gently, shifting in its foundation from a breeze outside.

“I knew a boy named Dorian Nettle. Ellen Stockton. Gillian Robinson. El-”

A pause. A choke. Each name felt thick in his throat. Each syllable choking.

He leaned forward. Bent. Broke.

Face in hands.

He started crying.

A few minutes of it went on, passed.

He straightened up. Swallowed thick.

Stared at the chair.

“My name is Cain Basile Croix.” He started again.

* * *

Nialls came in hours later.

Found him sitting up already, waiting on the edge of the bed.

He brought in a suit, laid it out. Different one from the other night.

(Other night? Other.. Day? Week? Didn’t matter..)

He didn’t have to make it an order this time, for Cain to get dressed.

He just did it, while Nialls looked his phone over impatiently. They were in a time limit..

They didn’t talk much.

Cain dressed, they left.

Nialls dipped into the kitchen, grabbing two protein shakes from the fridge. He handed Cain one, went out to the car. Told him to drink along the way, so he did. The replacement for a regular breakfast was shared in relative silence. Nialls listened to news on the radio for the drive out, flicking between channels constantly.

Cain listened. The flickering between static and conversations feeling strangely natural.

The world bled by outside the car. Faces of strangers. It looked warm out. Was it?

(Did it matter? He couldn’t feel it anyway.. No. It didn’t matter.)

**“How did you sleep?”** Nialls spoke up, turning the radio down.

“I didn’t.” Cain responded, monotone.

They went on for a time more in quiet.

**“That’s not good for you.”** Nialls sighed.

It wasn’t a question. So Cain didn’t respond.

They went the rest of the way without further conversation.

Nialls let the valet take the car around. Lead the way inside the tower building.

Cain just followed. Feeling again like things were dipping into a surreal dream.

This place.. These people..

It was a dream. He must have finally fallen asleep.

Nothing outside Nialls and the four walls of home was real.

Nialls was here, sure, but.. The room wasn’t.

So it had to be a dream.

Cain stood behind the other as he took a seat at the table, waiting for his business meeting to start.

If it was a dream.. It’d be easy to pretend.. To go back to how things were. How he’d been.

(Did it matter? ....No. Nothing really did.)


	13. Are You Jealous

Being out and around helped, but didn’t.

It was weird.

The Stocktons reminded him of his roots.

His family. Ellen. The Heroes.

It confirmed a few things, if nothing else.

The fight was still going. The game was still in play.

Whatever time he’d thought had passed, clearly hadn’t.

Trying to internally sift through it all was a nightmare, but he tried. He did his best as Nialls conducted his meeting. Working to keep his head above internal waters, Cain stayed out of the more complicated affairs. Ellen's older sister reminded him of his aunt. Another reason, on top of some others from the meeting, he had to not like her.

They made it back to the car. Nialls kept the radio low on the way back.

It wasn’t long before they were stuck in main street traffic, and Nialls was turning to him for conversation.

**“I hadn’t expected him to bring the older daughter. Quite the mouth on her.”** He sounded amused, in a sharp way. The same way he spoke about Ash sometimes. A tone Cain was learning meant ‘I like it, I want to break it’.

Cain just hummed, not commenting further.

Nialls, naturally, pursued.

**“Do you not like her?”**

“Not really.” Cain shrugged.

Nialls grinned at him. Had to keep pressing it, curious.

**“Are you jealous?”**

Cain turned, confused. Squinted at him.

“Of what?”

**“My interest in her.”**

Cain blinked a bit flatly.

“Why would I care who you’re interested in?”

Nialls, immediately, looked deflated. He huffed, irritated, and turned back to traffic.

An effort that grew awkward, when they weren’t going anywhere and he had nothing to focus on.

**“Why don’t you like me?”** He finally spoke up again.

Cain rolled his eyes, laying his head back against the seat.

“How many times do I have to go over this..” He groaned.

**“I haven’t hurt any of your boring friends lately! I didn’t hurt the Stocktons just now, and I had every chance to! Doesn’t that count for anything?”** He seemed.. Honestly confused. Honestly upset.

“You made Barghest betray Ash. She could have died. He could have killed one of my ‘boring friends’. And sorry, but not killing someone doesn’t really count as cause for merit. That’s just the baseline for being normal.” Cain watched him. Nialls kept his face forward. Hands on the steering wheel tightened a bit, but his jaw didn’t tense. Not anger, then. Something else. Something tight and.. Anxious?

**“How am I supposed to know what the rules for normal are?”** Nialls grumbled after a while.

Cain stayed quiet. He looked away.

The air in the car grew awkward.

“Why do you care, if I like you or not?” Cain finally bubbled up, when they’d managed to move a big through the sluggish murk of Chicago traffic. He didn’t dare look back over at Nialls. Didn’t want to see what the hell look was there on the man, now. It had been easier, when he was just a demon. Just a psychopathic, one-note villain. Now though, seeing real expressions, actually talking to him.. Cain didn’t want to think about it. How it was becoming more difficult to file the other away as evil and nothing else.

**“Because _I_ like _you_.”** Nialls huffed after a pause.

Cain wasn’t sure what to do with that.

It took time, more quiet driving, before he managed any sort of response.

“Tell me what day it is.” Cain finally attempted.

Nialls glared at him briefly. **“May 20th. It’s a friday.”**

“Still 2016?”

Nialls sighed, exasperated. **“Yes, it’s still 2016.”**

“Don’t get pissy, you’re the one keeping me in a goddamn box all the time.”

Nialls bristled. **“Don’t think you can order me around as a habit, boy.”**

Cain just rolled his eyes, slumped in his seat.

Another span of quiet consumed the car.

“How are they? Really?”

**“Do you trust me to tell you the truth?”** Nialls laughed.

Cain glanced over, expression dead serious.

“Yes.”

Nialls paused. Blinked at him. Startled by a car behind them honking, he turned back to traffic. Saw there was nowhere to actually go. Groaned, irritated, and turned back to Cain.

**“Tell me honestly. Do you really trust me to tell you the truth?”**

Cain glared. “Yes.” He repeated, flatly.

“You know it’s really annoying trying to talk to you when you do that constantly.”

**“Do what?”** Nialls murmured, oblivious, glancing back at traffic as they moved a few inches forward.

“Constantly force me to tell you how I really feel.”

**“Well how else am I going to know?”** Nialls huffed, nearly incredulous.

“You’re not. That’s the point. You just have to trust that I’m telling you the truth.”

Nialls shook his head a little.

**“That’s stupid.”** He said resolutely, flicking on a turn signal.

Cain let the battle go for another time, instead looking out the window and returning to the previous point.

“How are they, though? The hero kids?”

**“They’re not all kids, you know. Or are those the only ones you’re worried about?”**

Cain pursed his lips. Didn’t respond. Nialls glanced over, let it go. A certain truce forming on not bothering picking at every little thing. At least not today.

**“They went out on a boat a few days ago, I believe. The detective, his secretary. The ah.. brother-boys, yes. Stockton girl, the.. Others.”**

Cain looked over. Nialls shrugged.

“Jesus, you don’t even remember their names..” Cain muttered.

**“I know there’s that agent you like, and the.. Jew? Preacher? I don’t know, one of those.”**

“Oh my god.” Cain shook his head.

Things dipped quiet only in brief, Nialls continuing when Cain said nothing else.

**“But yes, so far as I know, they’re all alive and well. Big celebrities now, thanks to you.”**

“I didn’t do anything.”

**“Oh, yes.”** Nialls rolled his eye dramatically. **“You did absolutely nothing, the entire internet is hailing you as a sex icon martyr of a villain for no reason.”**

“What?” Cain looked distinctly disgusted. “Sex-what? Why?”

Nialls glanced over at him, trying to tell if he was joking.

**“Now who’s the thick one.”** He sighed, turning back to traffic.

Cain slumped in his seat more, crossing his arms. Uncomfortable.

He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Chose to trust, as he said he would, that Nialls was telling him the truth. It was easier these days to tell when he was lying. He got a certain smoothness to his voice, an amused pride about him. A certain quirk to the lips- oh, god. It hit Cain like a bus, to realize he was starting to understand the man, even that much. Nauseous, he kept to himself. The car simmered into a passive quiet the rest of the way home.


	14. It Was An Accident

At the house, Nialls didn’t waste time in the car like he had the other night.

He parked, they got out, went inside. He locked up behind them as Cain waited, watching.

Then it showed up.

It came around the corner from the kitchen, stopped in the foyer. Leaned against the staircase bannister and grinned. Cain tried to look away. To ignore it. Something ate at him though, until he blurted out, “I’m sorry. For the other night.”

It laughed. “I don’t c-”

“_I’m not talking to you._” Cain snapped, cutting it off. “I mean for her.”

It narrowed eyes at him, scowled for a moment before fighting to get a smile back.

“She’s dead, loverboy.” It taunted, crooning. “I’m all there is, now.”

“No she’s not.” Stubborn. Unwaveringly confident in what he said.

“She wouldn’t give up. Not to something as stupid as you.”

It sneered again, straightening, bristling.

“Watch your mouth, frenchie, or-”

**“_Barghest_.”** Nialls snapped, unamused.

**“Go away, find someone else to annoy.”**

“Oh, what?” It huffed, turning on the older, then.

“Irritated I’m poking your new fuck toy?”

It smirked, pleased with itself.

Nialls just stared, coldly.

**“Your creator would be so disappointed in you.”** He sighed after a moment.

It happened in a flash.

Barghest roared, lunged. Cain moved without thinking, one arm out to stop the thing from reaching him, grabbing at an arm and pulling it away. Barg just hissed and wheeled around on him, grabbing his arm and snapping it resolutely over one knee.

Cain shouted, hissed. The sensation overwhelming after so long of nothing. He curled the broken limb towards himself, grit teeth around the explosion of white hot nerves firing deep down at the bone. Barg lurched as if to do more, and Nialls resolutely shouted, _**“Enough!”**_ making it flinch and hault instantly.

**“Do you want me to shove you back in the damned hole I found you?!”** He shouted at Barg, grabbing and ripping him away from Cain. Nialls shoved it away, pointed up the stairs. Snapped again at it to leave, and with a defeated whine, it slinked away and out of sight.

Cain just sighed tightly, watching it go.

Nialls was back on him in an instant as soon as it left, gingerly prodding at his arm, lifting it.

**“And here I said you wouldn’t get hurt..”** He murmured, tired and.. Something else, Cain couldn’t understand.

Nialls lead the way back to his room, held the door for him. Didn’t relax at all until Cain was on the edge of the bed and he had his broken arm back in both hands.

**“Can you heal this?”**

“Yes.”

**“How long will it take?”**

Cain shrugged, not seeming to react at all when he shifted his busted arm.

A cut of blue bone was sticking out, around it spires of crystal jagged and leaking, weeping around the shape of his forearm. Nialls stared at it and sighed, not sure how to really fix something so strange.

“Sleep, probably.”

That wasn’t really a time limit. Nialls sighed.

Cain just stared at his arm, letting it collect loosely in his lap when the older let it go.

**“Wait here.”** He muttered, sounding exhausted when he turned, popping out of the room briefly.

Cain just stared at his arm. The crystal. The bone.

The fact the pain was already mostly gone, leaving him with nothing but a memory he didn’t want to hang on to. Knowing who did it.. It wasn’t a very enjoyable moment, despite all the reasons it should have been.

Nialls came back with a bottle of water and a bottle of pills. Cain bristled readily.

**“Here,”** the older handed the water over, already uncapped. Cain was careful, flicking the cap off onto the bed and sipping at it readily.

**“Take this.”** He shook a pill out into his palm. Cain squinted at it for a moment.

“What is it?” There were no numbers, letters, marks. Just a bland white pill.

**“Melatonin. It’ll help you sleep.”**

He didn’t entirely trust it. But he didn’t want to deal with Nialls making him take it.

So, resigning, he took a mouthful of water, the pill, swallowed. Nialls hung around, letting him drink more before taking the bottle again, recapping it. He moved to go leave it on the sink counter before coming back.

**“Lift your leg.”**

“Why?”

**“Lift your leg.”** He repeated, compelling. Cain did so, Nialls pried off his shoe.

Cain rolled his eyes, not wanting or needing the doll treatment, but didn’t have to be told to live the other right after.

**“Get some sleep.”** An order, as Nialls moved, not to leave, but to sit in the chair beside the bed.

Cain just settled down beneath the sheets with a sigh, careful to keep his arm from catching or tearing on anything. Once he was down, on his side, he stared at Nialls passively, who watched him right back in what was an awkward silence for all of a minute before Cain sighed.

“Are you going to sit there all night?”

**“It’s the afternoon.”**

“You know what I mean.”

Nialls shrugged, looking away.

**“So what if I do?”**

“That’s creepy.”

**“Why?”**

Cain had to pause. Think about it.

“I don’t know. Just is.”

He shrugged, Nialls huffed.

**“That’s not good enough.”** He decided, crossing his arms in the chair.

**“I want to stay, so I’m staying.”**

Cain rolled his eyes.

“You’re a lot more like a child than I thought you’d be.”

**“What?”** Nialls looked back at him, irate and bristling.

**“I’m older than you.”** He snapped slightly, eye narrowing.

Cain just shut his, trying to settle. Trying to feel tired, sleep.

It wasn’t happening. Certainly not with someone, with _Nialls_, sitting there watching.

“It’s not about age.” He mumbled, once it was clear sleep was still far off.

“You act petulant and fussy. Childish.”

The chair creaked. Cain lazily opened one eye, watching Nialls shift, clearly wrestling with his own anger.

“How’s that no pain plan working for you now?”

Cain smirked. Nialls glared at him.

**“Tell me more about your sister.”** He spat, without compulsion.

Cain waited for the weight, but when it didn’t come he laughed tiredly.

“Tell me about your scar.”

He shut his eye again. Let Nialls seethe on his own, let the room fall quiet with barely managed temper.

**“It was an accident.”** Nialls said. Quiet. Bitter.

Cain’s smile dropped. He opened both eyes. Stared, somber and attentive, at the other.

Nialls was a ball of tight lines, tense jaw, narrowed eye. He watched, when Cain looked at him.

Huffed, then, **“I don’t like talking about it.”**

“Never would have guessed.” Cain grunted against his pillow.

**“Why are you such a massive cunt?”** Nialls finally broke, snapping the words in thick accent.

Cain almost snorted, a grin twisting onto his features on impulse at the other losing his cool.

“You don’t exactly inspire a great deal of empathy out of me.”

**“Well..”** Nialls simmered. Fell back to.. Pouting? **“Why not?”**

Cain shifted. Stared at him again. Trying to tell if he was serious.

He was.

“You put a volatile memetrash robot into my girlfriend. For starters.”

Cain deadpanned, staring at the man flatly.

Nialls just looked away, glaring bitterly at the far wall.

_**“And?”**_ He grumbled.

“And,” Cain continued immediately. “You killed the only adult she’s ever cared for.”

**“I didn’t kill him.”** Nialls argued. **“I arranged for someone else to do that.”**

Cain just stared him down like a parent not accepting a child’s flimsy excuse for breaking a rule.

“Semantics.” He leveled flatly. “It happened because of you all the same.”

**“Fine.”** Nialls snapped, angry but.. Not entirely? Cain squinted, trying to understand, just as he added on,

** _“I’m sorry.”_ **

A silence fell between them.

Cain just stared, not sure what to do about it.

Did he mean it? It looked like he meant it.

Did it matter if he meant it?

Cain blinked, trying to sort through it all internally.

What he came to after a long while of nothing was, “Why are you sorry?”

Nialls looked back, grumpy, sulking.

**“Because it’s clearly very much upset you.”**

“Well.. yeah, no shit.” He spat out before he could stop himself.

“What did you think was going to happen?”

Nialls shrugged and looked away again, uncomfortable.

**“I don't know. Didn’t care.. At the time.”**

Cain shut his eyes for a moment. Trying to process.

It felt harder, more sluggish, to think deeper than kneejerk impulse thoughts.

“Well this is what happens when you act like that. People you end up liking turn out to not like you.”

He shut his eyes again, shifted some. Trying to commit to the idea of sleep.

A haze was settling in, slow but sure. A certain tension forcing its way out of his system.

Before he could get too close to sleep, Nialls spoke again, his voice pulling Cain back into awareness.

**“How can I make you like me?”** He muttered it, so low Cain almost missed it.

He sighed, without thinking answering the question honestly.

“You can’t think about it like that. You can’t approach it as how to make someone like you, cause that implies force and no one’s going to like you if you force them to. I get you’re like a maniacal sociopath, but you’re not stupid. You should be able to figure this out yourself. It’s basic empathy.”

A new silence settled in. Cain groaned, rolling over onto his back.

Nialls was quiet for a long stretch again, and as if he knew how to time it, just as the blonde started drifting,

**“I don’t understand empathy.”**

“I’ve noticed.” Cain grunted wearily.

He felt bad about it, a moment after. Then felt bad for feeling bad.

Nialls was the scum of the earth, in most every way.

But.. he _was _human. Everyone was.

And so the empathy snapped at him, churning hate into guilt sickly in his stomach.

Cain didn’t want to deal with it. Didn’t want to think about it. He tried to just sleep but,

**“It’s not like I asked to be like this..”** Nialls whispered.

Cain’s eyes opened automatically. He turned his head.

Exhausted, dragging deeper every minute. But he stared at the other, regarding him for a moment. The way his face looked in the dim room, dejected and angry. Glaring at nothing because there was no physical form for his emotions to take so he could lash out at those, instead of everything else.

Cain heaved a sigh. So much for hating the guy..

“We’ll work on it.” He grunted, trying to help but feeling too tired to do it eloquently.

“Just.. don’t kill anybody while I’m asleep.”

**“What if they try to hurt you? Or Ashley? What if they get in my way?”**

Nialls asked with a confused, but honest, eagerness.

Cain whined, not wanting to be bothered by the deep thoughts.

“I can take it. Ash can handle herself. And just.. I dunno. Let them. W’Can clear it up later..”

He waved his noninjured arm dismissively, let it flop back to the bed heavily.

Things went quiet again. And, again, just as he felt hazy and disjointed enough to drift into nonsense dreams- **“How did you get your scar?**”

He opened his eyes again, glaring at the ceiling.

“What?”

**“The one by your eye.”**

Cain turned his head. Pressed out a sharp sigh.

“My mom had an episode and thought I was a demon possessing her son. Cause of my powers, cause I didn’t breathe. She attacked me, she missed. I didn’t heal back then. It scarred like this.”

Resolutely, he shut his eyes. Turned back to the ceiling. Settled in.

More quiet. A passive, luring silence. His thoughts jumbled around, holding on to nothing coherent. Not for more than a slipping second. It all melted away bit after bit, and right when the distinct nothingness of unconscious was tantalizingly close- nothing. Quiet. Calm. Sleep-

**“It was a farming accident.”**

Nialls’ voice drew him up, but not all the way.

Cain listened. Didn’t open his eyes, even when he wanted to. Didn’t make a sound, even when he tried. He just laid there, too disconnected to manage anything, too tired to remember how to function around the haze. Maybe it was a dream. Real or no, some version of Nialls kept talking to him in the dark.

**“A tractor turned over while I was trying to help my dad in the field. They said it should have killed me. Shrapnel from the wreck went straight through my thigh, nicked an artery. I passed out in the field, screaming at my mom to do something. I kept begging her to make it stop, to not let me die..”**

A lapse. A wave pushing into shore, sinking away. Pushing back..

**“I woke up in the hospital. Heard my parents pleading with the doctors about treatment. They could fly me to the capital clinic, but the money.. I started shouting. Panicked. All I can remember is just.. Being so afraid of dying. I screamed at anyone who could hear me to just do something, anything. They flew me out that very minute. I got surgery, lived. They couldn’t do much about the scar, though, even after the operation..”**

A sound like sighing ocean water. Pushing and pulling.

Seagull calls somewhere far away..

**“I haven’t really.. Talked about it to anyone since it happened..”**

Bright sunlight. Glittering coastal sands..

Little shells freckling the beach in mismatched colors..

The dreams weren’t anything he’d remember come later.


	15. I Loved A Girl Named Ashley

Eyes fluttered open.

No deep inhale, no real stirring.

Relative silence, save for the singular motion of opening eyes to stare at the ceiling.

He was awake. What exactly that meant took time to sink in.

He was awake. Alone (no sounds of breathing in the room) and it was dim.

It was always dim. This particular room had no windows. Strange, for a bedroom.

But then again Nialls Teagan was weird and crazy so it made sense he’d have a weird and crazy room..

It was May. The.. 20th? 21st?

He wasn’t sure of the time. Had no way to check it.

But he knew it was May, that he’d fallen asleep from medication in order to-

He sat up. Looked down.

No real surprise, his arm was fine. The busted out bone, the spires of leaking crystal, were all gone. Not a trace, not a scar. Lips twitched. He wasn’t sure why the sight of his arm unbroken and smooth was upsetting, but it was. Vaguely. The sensation was muted, distant. He didn’t care enough to try to hold on to it. Let it go, down into the thick nothingness where everything else rested these days until he or Nialls found to rip it out of the tar pit in his chest.

Cain looked around.

Got out of bed.

A shower, then he brushed teeth, took the bottle of water on the sink counter back to the bedroom.

He drank, got up to refill it, sat back down. Inevitably, eyes returned to the chair.

It felt.. Unsettling, that it was empty. Unnatural.

He laid down. Stared at the ceiling.

“My name is Cain Basile Croix...” He stared. Monotone.

Saying it because he needed to remember. Because..

Just because.

“I’m twenty-.... Twenty-..”

He squinted. Tried to think.

How long had it been since his life had become this?

It was May. 2016.

“I’m twenty-five.”

He repeated it a few times. Tried to cement that bit for later.

“I’m in Chicago. My home is in New York City.”

He started tapping his finger on the water bottle.

A noise to distract from all the sounds he already knew, churning around.

“I loved a girl named Ashley..”

A pause. More tense staring up at nothing.

When had it become_ loved?_

“I _love _a girl named Ashley.”

He amended.

A new quiet formed.

_Tap, tap, tap, tap_

He sat up. Stopped tapping the bottle. Drank from it.

Stared at the far well with a tense, settled determination.

His voice dropped down to a whisper. A promise.

“And I’m going to have to kill Nialls Teagan..”

* * *

The door opened after three hours of review.

Nialls had grown sloppy in his game. Affectionate.

Love was the very thing he’d laughed at, for making Cain and Ashley so easy to catch.

And now a weak form of it was going to be the very knife Cain pushed into the man’s heart.

It wasn’t his fault. A part of him knew that.

Nialls was a child. An unlucky one, with a power no human being should have ever had.

And while it was easy to dismiss the things he did as immature impulse and ‘not knowing any better’, dismissal wasn’t the right move. Not now, not for a forty-something year old man who’d had plenty of time to learn and change.

Anyone could be anything.

Cain could have been his father. He chose not to.

Nialls could have fought, like Ash did, for some semblance of humanity.

He hadn’t. He’d become this. And now, tragedy as though it were to Cain, he would have to die for that.

He waited in bed for Nialls to come around.

It took him three hours after Cain woke to show, and that was three hours the blonde meticulously poured into reminding himself of himself.

Nialls arrived with food. More water.

He set both on the end table. Settled in his chair.

The usual routine.

**“Sit up.”** And order he didn’t even think about giving.

One Cain obeyed, as mechanical and immediate as possible.

**“Open your mouth.”**

Bite by bite like a child with a doll.

He paused in the middle. Told Cain to drink, waited until half the water bottle was drained before going back to the food. Ordered motions. Open, chew, swallow, repeat. When it was finished, water drained, Nialls sat back in his seat. Cain stared at the floor, thoughts churning.

Could he do this?

Was it wise?

The right time?

Nialls had been acting strange lately, which could have been a ploy. But was he smart enough for that? Was he deceitful enough to feign love, all to pretend to hang himself with it? Cain had debated much in the three hours time, but now it felt all the more crucial to consider again.

Was this the right move to make in their game?

There would be no turning back from it either way, once he started.

**“What do you think of the heroes?”** Nialls started in.

Cain shifted, onto his back, to stare at the ceiling.

“It’s selfish.” He paused, as if that was all he was going to offer.

He’d been talking more lately, though. Rambling more in hazy mental states.

So he added on after a momentary lapse, “Asking strangers to fight, get hurt, feel scared.. All for this? For us? They’re good kids. But the position they were guilted into isn’t fair.”

Nialls hummed. Didn’t laugh, didn’t mock him for the whole thing.

He seemed to consider it for a time, nodding to himself.

**“You could call it off, you know. Tell them to stop.”**

Cain shook his head.

“Ash tried already, kind of. When she thought it wouldn’t work. You of all people should understand by now. When you raise something that can think for itself to power, eventually it’ll be out of your hands entirely.”

He didn’t need to look to know Nialls was giving him a dirty look.

The topic of Barghest and the current situation therein absolutely burnt him.

Cain couldn’t say much. He hated it, too. He wasn’t the one who implemented the damn thing though.

“Are you worried about the heroes now, or something?” Cain turned to stare at Nialls passively.

The man sat back in his chair, sighed like it was a stupid question to even bother asking.

**“Not in the least. They’re still disorganized idiots floundering around like dying fish.”**

Nialls rolled his eye, sounding insulted Cain even expected an answer to the question.

**“But you like them. You said it would make you happy, if they weren’t hurt.”**

Cain stared. Wary. Not trusting the message there for what it appeared as at face value.

“You stand more to gain from them staying in play, though.” He pointed out cautiously.

Nialls shrugged. **“I do.”** He agreed. **“But it doesn’t matter. You’re more interesting than that.”**

A pause. Cain wasn’t sure how to take that. He turned, staring at the ceiling again.

“Why are you so infatuated with me?”

**“Why wouldn’t I be?”** Nialls laughed.

**“You’re strange. You’re the first person that makes less sense the more I learn about you. You’re not as stupid as you let on, and your heritage would be very advantageous for me to keep in my pocket.”**

An uncomfortable shift. Cain’s jaw tensed, relaxed. A brief but clear tell he didn’t like ‘his heritage’ being brought up. Nialls noticed. Said nothing, for now.

“I haven’t talked to my father in-”

**“Several months, yes, I know.”** Nialls sighed, waving a hand dismissively. **“And when you did you declined rights to your inheritance. You think that matters, though? You think anyone smart in this game will take you as a child saying no seriously?”**

Nialls laughed. Cain turned his head just to glare at him.

“I’m not a child.” He bristled flatly.

Nialls just smirked at him, looking all the more amused.

**“You’re a twenty-five year old boy who hasn’t seen enough of anything to have opinions that matter.”**

For a bit, they hung in still quiet. Cain just gave Nialls a dirty look, which the older seemed to lavish.

“So after last night..” Cain broached it slowly.

Nialls tensed immediately. The amusement dropped out of his features. He stared, wary and alert.

Did that mean what he vaguely remembered had really happened? A hazy story about a farm accident?

“Is the no pain thing still going?” Cain rose his now uninjured arm, waved it a bit in reference.

Nialls eased his shoulders, but continued the flat, unamused look at the blonde’s arm.

**“I could.”** He considered aloud. **“It does seem to make you rather anxious, to be handled gently.”**

Cain didn’t mean to, but his expression stiffened. Didn’t like that answer. Feared it, on some level.

**“But if I’m being entirely honest,”** a rarity, Cain noted internally,** “Given the current situation with the dog, I feel it’s doing as much damage to me as it is you, which entirely defeats the point.”**

Nialls sighed, a sort of mournful noise, though less with sadness and more irritation. Upset at having to give up part of his game, especially since it was due to a complication in planning he’d made.

**“So no.”** He settled at last, bitter but surrendering the point.** “I suppose it isn’t still going.”**

He wouldn’t admit, not then or later or ever, how honest and easy it was then to look at the older imploringly. A touch of hope, of begging. All in a glance, curious but too stubborn to ask. Nialls stared, not getting it at first, before his eye narrowed and a grin bloomed over his features.

**“I’m not jumping up to fuck you just because you’re desperate.”** He mocked, grinning wider when Cain just huffed and turned away, directing the frustrated glare on his face back to the ceiling.

**“Tell me..”** Nialls started. It trailed off though, into a pensive consideration. More than just one thing he wanted to know, to dig up or into? Cain wasn’t sure what to make of that. He just waited, stayed still.

**“Why won’t you break?”**

The first thing Cain wanted to say was to ask what on earth that meant, where it came from.

Did this not count as breaking? Losing track of reality, scrambling emotions and memories and.. Everything.

But the compulsion settled, his mouth opened, and what came out instead was,

“Because I’ve been around people like you long enough I know how to survive it.”

Nialls was quiet. Cain was curious, but didn’t look over. Didn’t want to encourage anything.

**“What do I have to do to make you obedient?”**

The pause formed after the question.

Less from an unwillingness to answer, though that was there as well, as it was a general lack of reply. Cain, consciously, didn’t know. Wasn’t sure. Couldn’t fathom anything that would-

“Remove every reason I have to resist.”

Nialls’ satisfied grin was almost audible.

**“What reasons do you have to resist? Name them all.”**

Cain grit his teeth. Fought it. Shut eyes tight, balled up fists in the sheets, and fought it.

“To keep fighting for Ash. To protect my friends. To make sure you don’t hurt anyone else.”

Nialls, readily, laughed at the answer. Long, loud peels that danced between mocking and real amusement.

**“That’s it?”** he chuckled, rocking in his seat. **“That’s really it? Ashley? Those dumb kids? Empathy? That’s all you're fighting for, resisting for? That’s what has you continually going through this and asking for more?”**

Nialls couldn’t believe it. He fell into a new string of laughter.

**“I should have asked sooner! I feel almost disappointed!”**

He stood, pacing around the room. Cain dared a glance over, just to see his phone in hand.

**“I can’t believe that that’s it.. No deep moral reasoning? No.. Nothing! Nothing but love and wanting to protect everyone else? You don’t even care about your own mentality in this? Well?”**

He came over, swift, elated. Sat on the edge of the bed hard enough it bounced slightly.

He leaned over, and Cain looked away, glaring at the far wall. Somehow, this.. Hurt.

**“Tell me, truly. Are you resisting me for any reason other than the wellbeing of those around you?”**

Cain tried. He dug his heels into the bed. Bit nails into crescent scars in his palm. He shook his head slightly, fought the crushing weight, cursed Nialls every way he could think internally.

But it was inevitable.

“No.” Finally cracked out.

Nialls went into another peel of laughter.

**“So you don’t care? About yourself? What I do to you, whatever this whole game does to you? You’re not scared at all about your own mentality or health or if you even live or not?”**

“..No.”

**“And your so-called friends.. As long as they’re safe, nothing else matters?”**

“Ash matters.”

More laughter.

**“Yes, of course.”** Nialls sighed, wiping at his eye. **“How could I forget your darling lover girl?”**

He turned attention down to his phone, tapping away. Cain kept his eyes shut.

He didn’t want to be here anymore. Didn’t want to do this anymore.

He’d had a plan, sure, but.. The timing wasn’t right. He couldn’t risk it, now.

The only choice was to wait, to endure, even as his stomach twisted sickly.

**“You know, I knew you had self-worth issues.”** Nialls spoke up after a time of being absorbed into his phone.

**“But I mean, really Cain.. To honestly, deep down at your core, really not care how this all leaves you.. To only be going through this for other people? That’s.. Impossible!”**

Nialls laughed more. Stood up, practically bouncing on his heels.

**“I mean, even the most caring human nature still has the base evolutionary impulse of self-preservation. Even if one did care for people to such an insane degree.. They’d still have that internal nature of caring how they turned out themselves. Anyone will kill someone if you make it about their life versus the other’s.”**

He moved around the room, unable to sit still. Amused, amazed.

Laughing more in those moments than Cain could remember him ever doing.

**“I almost hate you now, you know.”** Nialls shook his head. Snapped his fingers.

**“Get up. Put your shoes on.”** He interjected the order like it was nothing, talking around it so smoothly it was almost easy to forget he’d even said it, save for the fact Cain did as told. Sat up, in the suit of yesterday, found his shoes.

**“To think it’s this simple.. That taking out her darling, stubborn, pain in my ass piece on the board is really so easy as.. Ahh, god. It’s honestly insanely upsetting. Do you even realize?”** Nialls tucked his phone away, watching Cain put his shoes on. As soon as they were, he advanced, grabbing the blonde by the face.

**“Do you understand at all how much I want to just crush your fucking skull open right now?”** He laughed, like it was funny, but his grip was strong, hand shaking with it, nails biting into skin. Cain just stared, trying to bury the fear behind the stern look. He’d thought Nialls a child, and empathy had grown from there. But there was something intense and horrific in watching a grown man fly into a manic amusement over something that made no sense. A real terror born from an adult acting well and truly like a child..

**“Come on.”** Nialls moved to the door, tone elated still.

**“We’re going out. I’m cleaning up this mess once and for all.”**

He lead the way out, to the foyer, the driveway, the car.

It wasn’t until they were pulling out onto the street that he set his phone in the center console, using voice commands to start a speaker call.

**“Blair!”** Nialls practically chimed into the device as they went along. **“I need to meet you a little early.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end. In the group story, the lines had more context to them - Blair was a metahuman known for creating illusions and being able to pull elements from the minds of those around her to create them. This hinted something especially malicious for Cain's near future. Unfortunately, the group story fell apart not long after and a full conclusion was never reached. This story ended here, on the implication Nialls took Cain to someone able to make physical in a sense, all the purely verbal manipulations he'd been using. And now, knowing the only things left Cain was fighting for, he had every solution to removing them. I've considered writing attached pieces further after the fact, detailing that process. But to be honest, knowing the group story itself ended and any hope of the heroes saving Cain and Ash was gone - I can't bring myself to write Cain's ultimate destruction. It's something, in this last chapter, left to implication. Maybe Cain found the strength to go through with his plan, holding out hope and resilience enough to kill Nialls himself? Or maybe he didn't, and Nialls was the one to get what he wanted, in some form. Either ending you choose to believe - I hope if you liked Cain as a character you'll consider reading some of my other original works, as he tends to crop up often as various AU versions in different stories. Maybe in another he'll have a happy ending, but sadly that just wasn't the way things played out here.


End file.
